Former New York Jets great Marty Lyons says retired players need health benefits now
THURSDAY, 19 MAY 2011 07:43
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/former-new-york-jets-great-marty-lyons-says-retired-players-need-health-benefits-now
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
NEW YORK. N.Y. — In October 1987, New York Jets defensive lineman Marty Lyons decided to cross a picket line and play football because he didn't like the way National Football League Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw was conducting the association's business. The NFLPA went on strike looking for a liberalized form of free agency and more money. The NFLPA didn't bother asking for after-career lifetime health benefits.
Lyons has never looked back at his decision to cross the picket line and in hindsight thinks the 1987 four week strike was a waste of time.
"I don't worry about it, I got more important things to do than worry about a labor dispute, worry about a lockout" said Lyons on Tuesday at the announcement that he was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame. "I got four kids, I try to be the best father, best husband that I can to them. Whatever happens in this dispute, they will settle it.
"If it is going to help the league, if it is going to help the players, if it is going to subsidize our retirement a little bit better. Great. If it doesn't, I can't worry about things I can't control. I am interested. I am still an NFL alumnus, I still believe in what the players are trying to accomplish but I cannot control it. If you can't control it, why get stressed out about it. I support (former Giants defensive lineman) George Martin and the NFL alumni. I was just at the NFL Draft with (Commissioner) Roger Goodell. I do a lot of work for the Jets. I see the issues on both sides of the fence. But I can't control any of it, so you know what, I get every morning and I go to work."
But Lyons is interested in the welfare of his former teammates and others who played in the NFL and thinks the old players need some help.
"Eighty-seven, it was very difficult," he said the of labor action. "I think there was a lot of dissension between the players and the leadership we had in Gene Upshaw. When the replacement teams can in, some of us made the decision that it was in our best interests and our families best interests allow to let these people to come in and take our jobs."
Neither the 1982 nor the 1987 NFLPA strikes, in the long term, helped the membership. The "Money Now" mantra of the players should have been replaced by “what will your life at the age of 45, 50, 55 and 60 be like?” The players seem to have the same problems today as they did in 1982 with the exception of having more money than those who played 29 and 24 years ago.
"Probably not," said Lyons of whether the two strikes helped those players involved in the long run. "You know, I think the issues from 87 to where we are now maybe get magnified a little bit more because there is more money involved. Anytime that there is money involved and the issues are back and forth, I don't know who wins. Because you got the owners, because they want a little more money, you got the players...I see guys like Kevin Turner, a good friend of mine who played at the University of Alabama suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.
"A lot of head injuries.
"He is 41 years old, 42 years old with three kids. What's the NFL going to do for him? What's his pension going to do for him and his family? He's just fighting every day to stay alive.
“There's another head injury. "
The National Football League does not acknowledge that head injuries may cause health problems down the line. In 2010, the league posted a warning about head injuries in each of the 32 team's locker rooms but other than a few words and some other forms of communications, players still are getting their bells rung and returning to the field as quickly as possible.
"You didn't worry about them (head injuries), you really didn't worry about injuries," said Lyons of his attitude and the attitude of his NFL playing peers during his time in the league in the 1980s. "Because the bottom line is, if you allowed somebody to come in and take your position, you may not get it back. So there was a big difference, everybody played hurt. If you were injured, it was a different story."
Lyons former coach Walt Michaels and former Sack Exchange teammate Joe Klecko are hurting like many others who played in the NFL.
"If you see Walt now and walks around, if you see Joe Klecko, he just had a shoulder replacement. The game does have a price to pay if you play it long enough. And I think man for man, the individuals that are playing the price now, myself I had eight operations, I would have gone through a few more if I had an opportunity to lace them up and play one more game. It is well worth the price now to get out of bed."
Lyons is doing well. He is a senior vice president of operations for a Long Island construction company, the Marty Lyons Foundation is still going strong after 27 years helping terminally ill children, he is a motivational speaker and has 20 years of broadcasting on his resume.
But Lyons knows that former NFL players need help.
"I would love to see the league and the committee (the players association or more correctly what is the decertified players association) to come to some sort of agreement that if you are a vested player (three or more years experience) and you leave the game, you have a lifetime benefit of health benefits. When you retire, you benefits stop (the post 1993 players get health benefits for five years and then it ends, Lyons career was done in 1989 after 11 years). You better hope you get a good job or have enough money to go on COBRA. So I think health benefits are the number one priority that we should be looking at to get retired players once they leave the NFL.
"If you are vested and you make a contribution to helping the league and the players then you and your family should have lifetime health benefits. When I left the game in 1991, I had to get my health benefits. In hindsight, I think it was a mistake (that the NFLPA did not fight for lifetime health care) because some of the players who are financially stressed or some of the players now who don't have health benefits maybe they would not be in this situation in their life and the time of the life if they had better benefits, better health care. Maybe they would have gotten the proper help needed."
Lyons, despite an 11 year career, never made big money that could last a lifetime. The "billionaires versus millionaires" slogan that sportswriters have attached to this lockout doesn't work. Very few players make huge sums of cash. Most careers are brief and players need to find other employment after their careers. But the problem is that NFL players might have short careers but their aches and pains last a lifetime and some become disabled and cannot work. Those players eventually end up on social security insurance and Medicare and are looked after by taxpayers.
That is where Upshaw and his associates which include members of the NFLPA executive board and player agents failed their constituency in 1982, 1987 and 1993. They took short term gains and didn't see the future.
Lyons looks at the dispute as a former player but notes that other people are getting hurt. NFL teams have been laying off or reducing employee’s salaries. Coaches are taking a pay cut and if games are missed per diem employees will be left out in the cold.
"Everybody wants a little bit more of the pie," he said. "And the bottom line is that the people at the bottom end of the food chain that are going to pay the price if they don't play the game of football. You got a lot of people that are relying on that added income every single Saturday or Sunday whether they are parking cars or working concessions or working the stadium. For them not to have an opportunity to feed their family when there is a lockout or labor dispute, it is a shame."
NFL owners and players go to court on June 3 to argue over whatever they are fighting for. Collective bargaining agreement negotiations pick up on June 8. The players want status quo and keep 59 percent of football revenues, the owners want the players to give back revenues, cut their salaries (contracts are not guaranteed) and help build stadiums in Minnesota and Santa Clara, California by kicking in part of their revenues. Meanwhile former players are still out in the cold with meager pensions and no health benefits and for many football players, getting health insurance is almost impossible because of pre-existing conditions.
This is the NFL, with the initials NFL standing for, "Not For Long."
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at bickley.com, Barnes and Noble
Showing posts with label NFLPA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NFLPA. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Matson to players and owners: Help retired NFL players
By Evan Weiner
March 23, 2011
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/matson-to-players-and-owners-help-retired-nfl-players
(New York, N. Y.) -- Pat Matson has a very clear interest in the National Football League owners-National Football League Players Association or correctly the former National Football League Players Association as the players have decertified as a "union." Matson was a player in both the American Football League with Denver and Cincinnati and when the American Football League-National Football League completed their merger in 1970, Matson moved to the NFL with Cincinnati.
Matson was the Cincinnati Bengals player representative in the brief 1974 NFL strike. Matson is one of the players who have been left behind by the very players association and Matson once was a players representative and walked a picket line in 1974.
Matson is facing his 32nd operation from injuries sustained during his ten year career between 1966 and 1975 with Denver, Cincinnati and Green Bay. He needs his ankle fixed. He has had knee replacements and hip replacements. In 1975 when he was a member of the Green Bay Packers he had a trifecta---elbow, knee and ankle. Matson laughed that procedure made it tough for him to go to the backroom. Matson's first surgery came after he tore up his knee at the University of Oregon.
Matson seems to be fine mentally even after having four of five concussions during his career. He said he walks a little funny though. He admits he is fortunate despite the surgeries as he played 10 years and had a business career after football. He probably should be getting more than $1.064 a month in pension but that is considerably more than many who played for roughly the same amount of time during the same time period that Matson was employed in the AFL and NFL.
Matson is not a big fan of the late Gene Upshaw, the former Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association and New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees.
Last year Brees seemed to dismiss complaints by former players who were looking for more benefits from the NFL.
“There’s some guys out there that have made bad business decisions,” Brees said. “They took their pensions early because they never went out and got a job. They've had a couple divorces and they’re making payments to this place and that place. And that’s why they don’t have money. And they’re coming to us to basically say, ‘Please make up for my bad judgment.’ In that case, that’s not our fault as players.”
Brees sounded an awful lot like Upshaw who once said that his association couldn't take care of everyone.
Brees should have spoken to someone like Matson who did get a job after his career. In fact Matson had a job during his playing days. After his career Matson worked for Roger Penske and was able to get health insurance even though just about every player who leaves the game has a pre-existing condition which makes it extremely difficult for former players to get health coverage. Players who have been in the NFL since 1993 and become vested veterans have health benefits for five years following their careers. In Matson's day they was no post career safety net. The five years is probably not enough for present day players as their bodies seem to give out in six or seven years after a career and they need constant medical care.
Brees seems to be totally out of touch with working conditions of past players (pre-1993ers) and that is pretty sad as Brees has his name on the antitrust lawsuit that the former players association planned in the event of a lockout in an effort to torpedo the NFL's labor scheme.
The football culture is suck it up and be a man. You tear a knee up, put some tape on it and play.
Matson doesn't have too much regard for either the owners or the players association in this battle.
"The owners only care about getting all of the money," Matson said of the 2011 lockout. "I don't know what (Brees) is talking about or helping the pre-1993 players. Rookies are making $50 million. (We) got no payment for training camp; they furnished your meals and put you up. We got 50 bucks for an exhibition game (six in 1968) and Paul Brown used to have three-a-days (practices) in heat and humidity that was terrible. I never gave it a second thought to have an off season job, we always had jobs in the off season."
The football culture seems to not have evolved very much since the days when the NFL was a part time occupation for both owners and players. In the 1950s, Chicago Bears owner George Halas ran the football operations from July until December and was a sporting goods store owner in Chicago the rest of the year. Football was just a stepping stone to another career but the players from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and later have found out that football whether they like it or not is a lifelong profession as they suffer with football related ailments that include depression, mood swings, brain trauma, neck, shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle injuries. There are also family issues and documented bankruptcies and business failures.
Thoughts of suicide and actually suicides haunt former players.
There apparently is no real count of how many players who never qualified for NFL post career benefits available who are on the government dole before the age of 65 with social security disability or Medicare. There is no way of knowing how many high school, college, Arena Football Leaguers, USFLers, World Football League players who are also being cared for by the United States government although taxpayers may be on the hook for billions to provide care from football injuries.
Matson tried to sue the NFL/NFLPA for addition benefits in 1998 and failed. He blames both sides for the problems that retired and discarded players have and are facing.
"Upshaw had his good old boys network with (Harold) Henderson (NFL Executive Vice President for Labor Relations and Chairman of the National Football League Management Council Executive Committee). They denied everybody's claims (for disability). They wished you would go away and die. The NFL is boot hill. If you ignore it long enough. Upshaw was paying $150-200,000 for yes men and got a $6 million a year salary. We (the former players) are walking dead and can't do anything.
In 1969, Matson broke his tibia as a member of the Bengals against Denver. He told the Bengals trainer that he was hurt but no one wanted to tell Bengals coach Paul Brown that Matson was hurt.
"(The trainer) was scared of Paul," said Matson. "He said you're okay. If you can walk, you play, not like an NBA player if his toe hurts, he is out for two weeks. After the game I told my wife as I walked up the steps at Nippert Stadium. Four days later they X-rayed it."
The Bengals franchise moved to Riverfront Stadium in 1970 and the players had to contend with an Astroturf surface.
"It was pretty damaging. The (baseball's) Reds didn't like it. It was like an asphalt surface," he said.
Matson played just six games in 1969 but he was a valuable member of Paul Brown Bengals and had the respect of his teammates. He was the team's player representative. In 1974, the NFLPA went on strike which forced the cancellation of the annual College All-Stars versus NFL Champion Charity Game in Chicago. There was a 44 day strike that year but the NFLPA could not keep the membership on the same page.
The players' mantra in 1974 was "No Freedom, No Football" which was a shot at the owners who were not giving players a right to sell their services after they played out their contract. If a player decided to sign with another team, the "Rozelle Rule" named after NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle kicked in. The commissioner would review the signing and figure out what "compensation" was owed to a team who lost a free agent to another team. The players struck on July 1. NFLPA Executive Director Ed Garvey and his membership could not get the owners do not agree on even a single demand. The players association called off the strike on August 10 and decided to sue the NFL. In 1975, members of the New York Jets and the New England Patriots struck on the final weekend of the pre-season in an effort to get the talks moving. Eventually the NFL was found guilty of violating federal labor and antitrust laws.
In 1977 after the NFL owners were found guilty of violating federal labor and antitrust laws, the owners and players came up with a new collective bargaining agreement. The players did received improved benefits, an impartial arbitration of all grievances were implemented, there were some changes in the waiver system and option clauses and some free- agent restrictions were ended.
Interestingly enough, according to Matson, the NFLPA also sort better disability, insurance along with widow's and health benefits in 1974. Matson said Paul Brown told him. "You tried to ruin the NFL but you are going to stay," after he picketed in front of the Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.
"(There is) a lot of wear and tear on the human anatomy," said Matson of playing football and he played two of the toughest positions physically---the offensive line and on the wedge on special teams.
If you were hit in the head and were knocked out, the trainer would come out and see if a player was okay.
"If you could see two out of three fingers," said Matson of an on-field check up, "you went back in. I was in the middle of the wedge. Nobody cares about a wedge. I was at the point of attack in the wedge."
In Matson's day, defensive linemen were allowed to slap the heads of offensive players to gain an advantage.
"Deacon Jones, Tom Jackson, he was really good at it. I studied the Oakland Raiders who were really good at that," he said. "Today they are wrestling with each other."
Matson does wonder about the icons of the 1990s, a guy like Steve Young or a guy like Troy Aikman. Both suffered a number of concussions during their days as quarterbacks although Aikman has said that a back problem not concussions ultimately led him to retirement.
Matson is hoping the NFLPA will look after the old players as part of the collective bargaining process which will eventually resume once the court proceedings wind down, but he doesn't hold much hope. Matson is 66 years old and qualifies for social security and Medicare. His body is a wreck and he needs some work on his shoulders as well as his ankles. The NFLPA failed him and his peers by not collectively bargained a post career benefit package with the owners.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble 's xplana.com, kobo's literati or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
March 23, 2011
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/matson-to-players-and-owners-help-retired-nfl-players
(New York, N. Y.) -- Pat Matson has a very clear interest in the National Football League owners-National Football League Players Association or correctly the former National Football League Players Association as the players have decertified as a "union." Matson was a player in both the American Football League with Denver and Cincinnati and when the American Football League-National Football League completed their merger in 1970, Matson moved to the NFL with Cincinnati.
Matson was the Cincinnati Bengals player representative in the brief 1974 NFL strike. Matson is one of the players who have been left behind by the very players association and Matson once was a players representative and walked a picket line in 1974.
Matson is facing his 32nd operation from injuries sustained during his ten year career between 1966 and 1975 with Denver, Cincinnati and Green Bay. He needs his ankle fixed. He has had knee replacements and hip replacements. In 1975 when he was a member of the Green Bay Packers he had a trifecta---elbow, knee and ankle. Matson laughed that procedure made it tough for him to go to the backroom. Matson's first surgery came after he tore up his knee at the University of Oregon.
Matson seems to be fine mentally even after having four of five concussions during his career. He said he walks a little funny though. He admits he is fortunate despite the surgeries as he played 10 years and had a business career after football. He probably should be getting more than $1.064 a month in pension but that is considerably more than many who played for roughly the same amount of time during the same time period that Matson was employed in the AFL and NFL.
Matson is not a big fan of the late Gene Upshaw, the former Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association and New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees.
Last year Brees seemed to dismiss complaints by former players who were looking for more benefits from the NFL.
“There’s some guys out there that have made bad business decisions,” Brees said. “They took their pensions early because they never went out and got a job. They've had a couple divorces and they’re making payments to this place and that place. And that’s why they don’t have money. And they’re coming to us to basically say, ‘Please make up for my bad judgment.’ In that case, that’s not our fault as players.”
Brees sounded an awful lot like Upshaw who once said that his association couldn't take care of everyone.
Brees should have spoken to someone like Matson who did get a job after his career. In fact Matson had a job during his playing days. After his career Matson worked for Roger Penske and was able to get health insurance even though just about every player who leaves the game has a pre-existing condition which makes it extremely difficult for former players to get health coverage. Players who have been in the NFL since 1993 and become vested veterans have health benefits for five years following their careers. In Matson's day they was no post career safety net. The five years is probably not enough for present day players as their bodies seem to give out in six or seven years after a career and they need constant medical care.
Brees seems to be totally out of touch with working conditions of past players (pre-1993ers) and that is pretty sad as Brees has his name on the antitrust lawsuit that the former players association planned in the event of a lockout in an effort to torpedo the NFL's labor scheme.
The football culture is suck it up and be a man. You tear a knee up, put some tape on it and play.
Matson doesn't have too much regard for either the owners or the players association in this battle.
"The owners only care about getting all of the money," Matson said of the 2011 lockout. "I don't know what (Brees) is talking about or helping the pre-1993 players. Rookies are making $50 million. (We) got no payment for training camp; they furnished your meals and put you up. We got 50 bucks for an exhibition game (six in 1968) and Paul Brown used to have three-a-days (practices) in heat and humidity that was terrible. I never gave it a second thought to have an off season job, we always had jobs in the off season."
The football culture seems to not have evolved very much since the days when the NFL was a part time occupation for both owners and players. In the 1950s, Chicago Bears owner George Halas ran the football operations from July until December and was a sporting goods store owner in Chicago the rest of the year. Football was just a stepping stone to another career but the players from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and later have found out that football whether they like it or not is a lifelong profession as they suffer with football related ailments that include depression, mood swings, brain trauma, neck, shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle injuries. There are also family issues and documented bankruptcies and business failures.
Thoughts of suicide and actually suicides haunt former players.
There apparently is no real count of how many players who never qualified for NFL post career benefits available who are on the government dole before the age of 65 with social security disability or Medicare. There is no way of knowing how many high school, college, Arena Football Leaguers, USFLers, World Football League players who are also being cared for by the United States government although taxpayers may be on the hook for billions to provide care from football injuries.
Matson tried to sue the NFL/NFLPA for addition benefits in 1998 and failed. He blames both sides for the problems that retired and discarded players have and are facing.
"Upshaw had his good old boys network with (Harold) Henderson (NFL Executive Vice President for Labor Relations and Chairman of the National Football League Management Council Executive Committee). They denied everybody's claims (for disability). They wished you would go away and die. The NFL is boot hill. If you ignore it long enough. Upshaw was paying $150-200,000 for yes men and got a $6 million a year salary. We (the former players) are walking dead and can't do anything.
In 1969, Matson broke his tibia as a member of the Bengals against Denver. He told the Bengals trainer that he was hurt but no one wanted to tell Bengals coach Paul Brown that Matson was hurt.
"(The trainer) was scared of Paul," said Matson. "He said you're okay. If you can walk, you play, not like an NBA player if his toe hurts, he is out for two weeks. After the game I told my wife as I walked up the steps at Nippert Stadium. Four days later they X-rayed it."
The Bengals franchise moved to Riverfront Stadium in 1970 and the players had to contend with an Astroturf surface.
"It was pretty damaging. The (baseball's) Reds didn't like it. It was like an asphalt surface," he said.
Matson played just six games in 1969 but he was a valuable member of Paul Brown Bengals and had the respect of his teammates. He was the team's player representative. In 1974, the NFLPA went on strike which forced the cancellation of the annual College All-Stars versus NFL Champion Charity Game in Chicago. There was a 44 day strike that year but the NFLPA could not keep the membership on the same page.
The players' mantra in 1974 was "No Freedom, No Football" which was a shot at the owners who were not giving players a right to sell their services after they played out their contract. If a player decided to sign with another team, the "Rozelle Rule" named after NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle kicked in. The commissioner would review the signing and figure out what "compensation" was owed to a team who lost a free agent to another team. The players struck on July 1. NFLPA Executive Director Ed Garvey and his membership could not get the owners do not agree on even a single demand. The players association called off the strike on August 10 and decided to sue the NFL. In 1975, members of the New York Jets and the New England Patriots struck on the final weekend of the pre-season in an effort to get the talks moving. Eventually the NFL was found guilty of violating federal labor and antitrust laws.
In 1977 after the NFL owners were found guilty of violating federal labor and antitrust laws, the owners and players came up with a new collective bargaining agreement. The players did received improved benefits, an impartial arbitration of all grievances were implemented, there were some changes in the waiver system and option clauses and some free- agent restrictions were ended.
Interestingly enough, according to Matson, the NFLPA also sort better disability, insurance along with widow's and health benefits in 1974. Matson said Paul Brown told him. "You tried to ruin the NFL but you are going to stay," after he picketed in front of the Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.
"(There is) a lot of wear and tear on the human anatomy," said Matson of playing football and he played two of the toughest positions physically---the offensive line and on the wedge on special teams.
If you were hit in the head and were knocked out, the trainer would come out and see if a player was okay.
"If you could see two out of three fingers," said Matson of an on-field check up, "you went back in. I was in the middle of the wedge. Nobody cares about a wedge. I was at the point of attack in the wedge."
In Matson's day, defensive linemen were allowed to slap the heads of offensive players to gain an advantage.
"Deacon Jones, Tom Jackson, he was really good at it. I studied the Oakland Raiders who were really good at that," he said. "Today they are wrestling with each other."
Matson does wonder about the icons of the 1990s, a guy like Steve Young or a guy like Troy Aikman. Both suffered a number of concussions during their days as quarterbacks although Aikman has said that a back problem not concussions ultimately led him to retirement.
Matson is hoping the NFLPA will look after the old players as part of the collective bargaining process which will eventually resume once the court proceedings wind down, but he doesn't hold much hope. Matson is 66 years old and qualifies for social security and Medicare. His body is a wreck and he needs some work on his shoulders as well as his ankles. The NFLPA failed him and his peers by not collectively bargained a post career benefit package with the owners.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble 's xplana.com, kobo's literati or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Is Dave Duerson’s death just another football casualty?
MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2011 21:19
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/is-dave-duersons-death-just-another-football-casualty
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
As the clock ticks down to the March 3, 11:59 p.m. Eastern National Football League deadline for the players and owners to reach an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement or face a lockout, the suicide death of former Chicago Bears and New York Giants player Dave Duerson should be casting a pall over the talks.
“Should be” is the operative phrase here but other than some “shock” expressed in the media covering the talks, Duerson’s death seems to be stuff that local news TV news thrives on. The murder, mayhem, sports, entertainment and weather formula seems perfect for what passes as an attempt to inform people. Duerson’s death should be an “Around the Horn” episode on ESPN but that embarrassing program brings out the worst in sportswriters and hits every negative-Oscar Madison stereotype available.
Duerson will be forgotten soon enough except in rare cases such as Alan Schwarz’s New York Times reporting on head injuries.
The labor talks are following a script, neither side is budging, the NFL owners want to keep more industry revenue, the players want to keep status quo. The National Labor Relations Board is involved, there is a federal mediator, three United States Senators have weighed in and another Congressman, Lamar Smith wants no part of the talks. Duerson’s suicide seems to have been an inconvenience but it will not be a factor in the talks.
Duerson’s death at his own hands should be shaking the entire football industry but the most telling comments about Dave Duerson and football came from his former wife.
Duerson just seems to be a battlefield casualty like Mike Webster, Andre Waters and others.
A proud warrior.
“Discarded” NFL players apparently don’t have easy transitions into the “civilian” world because of the battering they took while playing the sport. It seems the issue of players safety was settled in 1905 after President Theodore Roosevelt pressured a few college presidents into cleaning up the game after the deaths of 18 players in college games and the maiming of others.
Players safety doesn’t seem to have been much of a priority on any level, whether it is high school, college or the National Football League. The NFL has been very slow to get into the players safety issue and the league is finally addressing head issues 105 years after President Roosevelt made the issue of player safety part of his presidency.
The NFL is now urging all 50 states to take a very close look at head injuries suffered in high school and other football programs for children. Whether it is lip service or not, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out 44 letters to states urging them to enforce strict surveillance of head injuries. The league is continuing to beef up head injury protocol but that is for future generations. But the league is not taking responsibility for past injuries.
The National Football League Players Association seems to be on the sideline in at least making players more aware of head injuries. Some players were upset when the NFL increased safety procedures last fall and threatened to fine players for hits.
Nor is college football although the NCAA owns Oscar Robertson’s basketball likeness from his days at the University of Cincinnati in perpetuity. Robertson last played for the University of Cincinnati 51 years ago. If the NCAA owns the Big O and every other college athletes' likeness, they should also own head injuries suffered by those who never played three years in the NFL. But the chances are the NCAA will ignore the perpetuity issue when it comes to health benefits.
Robertson has joined a class suit against the NCAA that was started by Ed O’Bannon in 2009 which states that the NCAA "has illegally deprived former student-athletes from "myriad revenue streams including "DVDs, video games, memorabilia, photographs, television rebroadcasts and use in advertising."
The NCAA contends it has the rights to the likenesses and the NCAA’s Collegiate Licensing Company will continue to use the likenesses.
The NFL (and probably the high school, college, minor league football, Arena Football League, All American Football Conference, American Football League, World Football League and United States Football League) battlefield is lined with casualties. There are too many stories involving Duerson, Webster, and others who died far too young. There are others who are around who tell of their problems like George Visger, Dave Pear and Brent Boyd. And there are many others who can’t or will not speak out.
The wives are talking though.
You need to go to Facebook to find out what they are saying and sportswriters whose main jobs are to glorify the macho men of fall — the Sunday gladiators — are missing a great story. The wives have become the caretakers and the United States government is providing money for players who are disabled through Social Security and Medicare.
There is a very sad irony in Duerson’s suicide that has not gone unnoticed by ex-players like Boyd.
Duerson was on the National Football League Players Association Retirement Board and was one of the people around the NFL who did not believe playing football and getting concussions had anything to do with problems in football’s afterlife. He was among the trustees who said no to players claims for disability.
Duerson shot himself in the chest and left his brain intact. He apparently left instructions that the brain should be donated for testing at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine. The researchers will look for chronic traumatic encephalopathy in (CTE) in Duerson’s brain. CTE has been found in the brains of other deceased football players and other athletes by researchers.
Those with CTE can suffer from depression, aggression leading the person to drug usage and possibly suicide.
The NFL is giving the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine a million dollars to study the deceased players brains. The researchers are trying to find out if CTE is a result of one concussion or the cumulative effect of repeated blows to the head.
Duerson’s post NFL career downward spiral doesn’t seem to deviate from other former players. There were family problems, money problems, business failure and mental problems that seem to be in line with other tragedies.
Who should have taken care of these players who left it all on the field for football?
It would be very easy to blame National Football League owners. But the National Football League Players Association failed association members. The “Money Now” chant during the 1982 NFL strike in retrospect was stupid. The players should have been looking at their football afterlife and not worry about accumulating as much money as possible over a short time period. The Players Association heads like Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and the players business agents didn’t have the players best interest in mind in formulating the association’s working condition bargaining strategy.
Their mantra seemed to be “show me the money” and “damn the future.”
Even though Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy, a former player with eight years in the league, said something totally inane to Freakonomics Radio and Stephen J. Dunbar, don’t place the onus on the owners entirely on the fate of the discarded players. The majority of the blame has to fall on the association negotiators who never took former players into account at the bargaining table and never explained to the mid-1970s group of players of the 1982 or 1987 grouping or even the 1993 association members that short term goal of getting the most money possible is great but we need to look at the long term.
Murphy comments were eye opening though because he was a former NFLPA member.
“You know, right now our current players if they’re vested, and you vest if you play three or more seasons, you get health insurance coverage for five years, which is great. But I look at it, too, and the transition for players from playing in the NFL to finding another career and establishing themselves is very difficult, and I really wonder, sometimes, if we do too much for the players. They’ve got severance pay and a 401(k) plan,” said Murphy in Dunbar’s podcast. “I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes it’s not all bad, and going back and talking to some of the players who played for Lombardi in the ‘60s — you know, they worked in the off-seasons, and they made a very smooth transition into their second careers because they had to. And so I’m a little worried that if we do too much for players in terms of compensation after their career’s end, and health insurance — it’s not all bad to have an incentive to get a job. And, so those are just some of the things we’re thinking through and talking through.”
Murphy should tell that to Boyd, to Visger (who never qualified for a pension or health benefits because he was not in the league long enough) Pear and the others who are broken down and the wives as well. But as a company CEO, it is not Murphy’s place to just give out benefits given the United States doesn’t have universal health care like other countries such as Canada and the UK to name two.
That is why collective bargaining is so important even though Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (Murphy is in Green Bay, Wisconsin) doesn’t agree. The onus falls on negotiators in collective bargaining. There is a responsibility on both sides to cut the best deal possible.
Workers have to bargain for their health care and that is where the National Football League Players Association has suffered a totally failure of responsibility. Years ago, former New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson complained about the severance package and not much has been done to help former NFL players and it is not because the NFL doesn’t have money.
Here is where the football wives can come in and create havoc for everyone. They could start talking. There are shows like Oprah, maybe Anderson Cooper’s new daily program that starts where the 2011 season is supposed to begin and they need to start talking openly like Alicia Duerson.
Facebook conversations between the wives of former players also reveal something rather interesting.
The former players were the Big Men on Campus, the macho men, the men who could show no weakness and were proud individuals. That trait hasn’t disappeared. There seems to be shame associated with failing bodies and that may be a major hurdle for the former players. The men were supermen on the field and the injuries became kryptonite for them.
“We don't hear about them, because they quietly suffer, “said one football wife. “We'll keep looking for them, but in many if not most cases, I believe it will be a female who leads us to them.”
That much is true. Recently this reporter got an e-mail from a wife who said, “My husband played in the mid 70's to 80," said the wife whose name will not be revealed. "We just saw results of neck MRI yesterday. — Not good, but helps explain severe headaches. He remembers the game the injury took place and he could not move his legs and arms the next day. The teams reassuring remark to him was, get better because you have to play the next week!
"Five years ago he was diagnosed with brain damage. Trying to get NFL to agree there's physical, long-term injuries in past NFL players is nearly impossible. They just keep appointing another committee to look into matter."
Alicia Duerson told the NBC TV affiliate in Chicago that during her husband’s career that "multiple times she had to drive her husband home after games because he was dizzy, nauseous, or just not feeling quite right.
"It happened in New York (playing for the Giants) and Chicago (Bears) as well.”
But there was also something else that Alicia Duerson said that eerily sounded like it came from the mouth of other former players who will tell you things in confidence once you know the individual.
"He talked to me a lot about blurred vision, and he had to go somewhere in the city and he couldn't remember how to get there. It was frustrating for him that he couldn't remember how to get there,” she said.
That particular story has been repeated by others who are in their 50s and played in the NFL.
The Duersons divorced not long after Dave Duerson threw his wife against a wall at the University of Notre Dame in February 2005. Duerson was charged with misdemeanor battery and lost his seat as a Notre Dame trustee.
Duerson’s physical problems came out long after his career was done. His post career benefits were long gone. His case is not atypical in the football world. In many ways, Duerson is not a special case. In about six months, researchers will determine where Duerson suffered from CTE.
The NFLPA never took medical problems into account in 1982 when the cry was “Money Now.” DeMaurice Smith, when he was appointed Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association, said he would take care of the former players and they would be welcomed back to the association, that has not happened yet according to a number of former players.
It seems not much has changed since 1982 and “Money Now.”
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2011 21:19
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/is-dave-duersons-death-just-another-football-casualty
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
As the clock ticks down to the March 3, 11:59 p.m. Eastern National Football League deadline for the players and owners to reach an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement or face a lockout, the suicide death of former Chicago Bears and New York Giants player Dave Duerson should be casting a pall over the talks.
“Should be” is the operative phrase here but other than some “shock” expressed in the media covering the talks, Duerson’s death seems to be stuff that local news TV news thrives on. The murder, mayhem, sports, entertainment and weather formula seems perfect for what passes as an attempt to inform people. Duerson’s death should be an “Around the Horn” episode on ESPN but that embarrassing program brings out the worst in sportswriters and hits every negative-Oscar Madison stereotype available.
Duerson will be forgotten soon enough except in rare cases such as Alan Schwarz’s New York Times reporting on head injuries.
The labor talks are following a script, neither side is budging, the NFL owners want to keep more industry revenue, the players want to keep status quo. The National Labor Relations Board is involved, there is a federal mediator, three United States Senators have weighed in and another Congressman, Lamar Smith wants no part of the talks. Duerson’s suicide seems to have been an inconvenience but it will not be a factor in the talks.
Duerson’s death at his own hands should be shaking the entire football industry but the most telling comments about Dave Duerson and football came from his former wife.
Duerson just seems to be a battlefield casualty like Mike Webster, Andre Waters and others.
A proud warrior.
“Discarded” NFL players apparently don’t have easy transitions into the “civilian” world because of the battering they took while playing the sport. It seems the issue of players safety was settled in 1905 after President Theodore Roosevelt pressured a few college presidents into cleaning up the game after the deaths of 18 players in college games and the maiming of others.
Players safety doesn’t seem to have been much of a priority on any level, whether it is high school, college or the National Football League. The NFL has been very slow to get into the players safety issue and the league is finally addressing head issues 105 years after President Roosevelt made the issue of player safety part of his presidency.
The NFL is now urging all 50 states to take a very close look at head injuries suffered in high school and other football programs for children. Whether it is lip service or not, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out 44 letters to states urging them to enforce strict surveillance of head injuries. The league is continuing to beef up head injury protocol but that is for future generations. But the league is not taking responsibility for past injuries.
The National Football League Players Association seems to be on the sideline in at least making players more aware of head injuries. Some players were upset when the NFL increased safety procedures last fall and threatened to fine players for hits.
Nor is college football although the NCAA owns Oscar Robertson’s basketball likeness from his days at the University of Cincinnati in perpetuity. Robertson last played for the University of Cincinnati 51 years ago. If the NCAA owns the Big O and every other college athletes' likeness, they should also own head injuries suffered by those who never played three years in the NFL. But the chances are the NCAA will ignore the perpetuity issue when it comes to health benefits.
Robertson has joined a class suit against the NCAA that was started by Ed O’Bannon in 2009 which states that the NCAA "has illegally deprived former student-athletes from "myriad revenue streams including "DVDs, video games, memorabilia, photographs, television rebroadcasts and use in advertising."
The NCAA contends it has the rights to the likenesses and the NCAA’s Collegiate Licensing Company will continue to use the likenesses.
The NFL (and probably the high school, college, minor league football, Arena Football League, All American Football Conference, American Football League, World Football League and United States Football League) battlefield is lined with casualties. There are too many stories involving Duerson, Webster, and others who died far too young. There are others who are around who tell of their problems like George Visger, Dave Pear and Brent Boyd. And there are many others who can’t or will not speak out.
The wives are talking though.
You need to go to Facebook to find out what they are saying and sportswriters whose main jobs are to glorify the macho men of fall — the Sunday gladiators — are missing a great story. The wives have become the caretakers and the United States government is providing money for players who are disabled through Social Security and Medicare.
There is a very sad irony in Duerson’s suicide that has not gone unnoticed by ex-players like Boyd.
Duerson was on the National Football League Players Association Retirement Board and was one of the people around the NFL who did not believe playing football and getting concussions had anything to do with problems in football’s afterlife. He was among the trustees who said no to players claims for disability.
Duerson shot himself in the chest and left his brain intact. He apparently left instructions that the brain should be donated for testing at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine. The researchers will look for chronic traumatic encephalopathy in (CTE) in Duerson’s brain. CTE has been found in the brains of other deceased football players and other athletes by researchers.
Those with CTE can suffer from depression, aggression leading the person to drug usage and possibly suicide.
The NFL is giving the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine a million dollars to study the deceased players brains. The researchers are trying to find out if CTE is a result of one concussion or the cumulative effect of repeated blows to the head.
Duerson’s post NFL career downward spiral doesn’t seem to deviate from other former players. There were family problems, money problems, business failure and mental problems that seem to be in line with other tragedies.
Who should have taken care of these players who left it all on the field for football?
It would be very easy to blame National Football League owners. But the National Football League Players Association failed association members. The “Money Now” chant during the 1982 NFL strike in retrospect was stupid. The players should have been looking at their football afterlife and not worry about accumulating as much money as possible over a short time period. The Players Association heads like Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and the players business agents didn’t have the players best interest in mind in formulating the association’s working condition bargaining strategy.
Their mantra seemed to be “show me the money” and “damn the future.”
Even though Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy, a former player with eight years in the league, said something totally inane to Freakonomics Radio and Stephen J. Dunbar, don’t place the onus on the owners entirely on the fate of the discarded players. The majority of the blame has to fall on the association negotiators who never took former players into account at the bargaining table and never explained to the mid-1970s group of players of the 1982 or 1987 grouping or even the 1993 association members that short term goal of getting the most money possible is great but we need to look at the long term.
Murphy comments were eye opening though because he was a former NFLPA member.
“You know, right now our current players if they’re vested, and you vest if you play three or more seasons, you get health insurance coverage for five years, which is great. But I look at it, too, and the transition for players from playing in the NFL to finding another career and establishing themselves is very difficult, and I really wonder, sometimes, if we do too much for the players. They’ve got severance pay and a 401(k) plan,” said Murphy in Dunbar’s podcast. “I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes it’s not all bad, and going back and talking to some of the players who played for Lombardi in the ‘60s — you know, they worked in the off-seasons, and they made a very smooth transition into their second careers because they had to. And so I’m a little worried that if we do too much for players in terms of compensation after their career’s end, and health insurance — it’s not all bad to have an incentive to get a job. And, so those are just some of the things we’re thinking through and talking through.”
Murphy should tell that to Boyd, to Visger (who never qualified for a pension or health benefits because he was not in the league long enough) Pear and the others who are broken down and the wives as well. But as a company CEO, it is not Murphy’s place to just give out benefits given the United States doesn’t have universal health care like other countries such as Canada and the UK to name two.
That is why collective bargaining is so important even though Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (Murphy is in Green Bay, Wisconsin) doesn’t agree. The onus falls on negotiators in collective bargaining. There is a responsibility on both sides to cut the best deal possible.
Workers have to bargain for their health care and that is where the National Football League Players Association has suffered a totally failure of responsibility. Years ago, former New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson complained about the severance package and not much has been done to help former NFL players and it is not because the NFL doesn’t have money.
Here is where the football wives can come in and create havoc for everyone. They could start talking. There are shows like Oprah, maybe Anderson Cooper’s new daily program that starts where the 2011 season is supposed to begin and they need to start talking openly like Alicia Duerson.
Facebook conversations between the wives of former players also reveal something rather interesting.
The former players were the Big Men on Campus, the macho men, the men who could show no weakness and were proud individuals. That trait hasn’t disappeared. There seems to be shame associated with failing bodies and that may be a major hurdle for the former players. The men were supermen on the field and the injuries became kryptonite for them.
“We don't hear about them, because they quietly suffer, “said one football wife. “We'll keep looking for them, but in many if not most cases, I believe it will be a female who leads us to them.”
That much is true. Recently this reporter got an e-mail from a wife who said, “My husband played in the mid 70's to 80," said the wife whose name will not be revealed. "We just saw results of neck MRI yesterday. — Not good, but helps explain severe headaches. He remembers the game the injury took place and he could not move his legs and arms the next day. The teams reassuring remark to him was, get better because you have to play the next week!
"Five years ago he was diagnosed with brain damage. Trying to get NFL to agree there's physical, long-term injuries in past NFL players is nearly impossible. They just keep appointing another committee to look into matter."
Alicia Duerson told the NBC TV affiliate in Chicago that during her husband’s career that "multiple times she had to drive her husband home after games because he was dizzy, nauseous, or just not feeling quite right.
"It happened in New York (playing for the Giants) and Chicago (Bears) as well.”
But there was also something else that Alicia Duerson said that eerily sounded like it came from the mouth of other former players who will tell you things in confidence once you know the individual.
"He talked to me a lot about blurred vision, and he had to go somewhere in the city and he couldn't remember how to get there. It was frustrating for him that he couldn't remember how to get there,” she said.
That particular story has been repeated by others who are in their 50s and played in the NFL.
The Duersons divorced not long after Dave Duerson threw his wife against a wall at the University of Notre Dame in February 2005. Duerson was charged with misdemeanor battery and lost his seat as a Notre Dame trustee.
Duerson’s physical problems came out long after his career was done. His post career benefits were long gone. His case is not atypical in the football world. In many ways, Duerson is not a special case. In about six months, researchers will determine where Duerson suffered from CTE.
The NFLPA never took medical problems into account in 1982 when the cry was “Money Now.” DeMaurice Smith, when he was appointed Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association, said he would take care of the former players and they would be welcomed back to the association, that has not happened yet according to a number of former players.
It seems not much has changed since 1982 and “Money Now.”
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
The Politics of the National Football League Potential Lockout
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/in-the-nfl-potential-lockout-all-roads-lead-to-washington
By Evan Weiner
November 18, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Since the last time we visited the potential National Football League owners' lockout of the players next March, about 72 hours ago, it appears that are a number of people have become a bit anxious about the whole process becoming politicized. The NFL had some issues with the piece. Former players had their say and no one, it seems, wants this to head to Congress and the Oval Office.
Or do they?
One former National Football League player sent an e-mail criticizing this writer for suggesting that National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith should take some former players who are disabled from injuries that they suffered while working as football players in the NFL and bring them before Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The suggestion is that Smith have the players testify and ask the GOP leaders to their faces why those two Congressmen and one Senator, along with the others who enjoy stellar house and senate health benefits because they are in Congress, should repeal the law that was passed in 2010 which will allow Americans with pre-existing conditions who cannot get insurance to buy health insurance should be overturned.
The former player wrote, "I take issue with the political spin that you put in your article. You are right, every player has pre-existing conditions as a result of playing in the NFL. It is up to the NFL to take care of their players, past and present. It is not up to the American taxpayer to pay for the care of the NFL players, past and present. It is obvious that the proposed health care plan that Obama passed will destroy our health care industry. I am hopeful that Mr. Cantor and Mr. Boehner will do everything in their power to get the health care plan repealed.
"The NFL owners have incredible revenue streams coming in, and the players who make this possible should be protected by the owners. Football is a huge industry, and there is a tremendous amount of money being generated by the sport. Perhaps the owners could take a part of the revenues that they generate through licensing, and apply them to a health care plan for all players past and present."
The 2010 health care plan isn't too far from the proposed Republican plan of the early 1990s which Robert Dole championed. A number of former NFL players cannot get health care because of pre-existing conditions and they are getting government assistance whether it is Social Security or Medicare despite not being the retirement age which last time anybody looked was funded by American citizens.
The NFL and the NFLPA tried to negotiate a deal to provide health care to about 2,500 out of 3,200 retired players but the NFLPA wanted all the retirees protected and rejected the NFL’s plan. The NFLPA wanted all the players protected and claimed a large group of former players would not be insured by TransAmerica because of pre-existing conditions.
That rejection brings the health care issue into the discussion and could be used as a reason to go before Congress, which under Boehner, Cantor and McConnell wants to roll back the 2010 legislation and there seems to be no GOP alternative.
The National Football League of today was created by Congress and two Presidential signatures. In 1961, two Democrats, Emanuel Cellar in the House and Estes Kefauver in the Senate crafted legislation that became known as the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 which was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to take all 14 NFL teams and sell them as one entity to American television networks starting in 1962. Rozelle played off CBS and NBC and got substantial deals with CBS. After losing two TV battles to CBS in 1964, NBC chairman David Sarnoff decided to make the American Football League a real major league entity. He gave them a huge (for 1965) five year deal and football was flooded with money.
In 1966, the NFL and AFL agreed to merge but needed Congressional approval. Again Cellar was involved but two Louisiana Democrats, Russell Long in the Senate and Hale Boggs in the House literally traded their votes to Rozelle in exchange for an expansion team in New Orleans and the merger was approved. Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation which was on the back of an anti-inflation bill in October 1966 and within ten days, New Orleans had a team.
Additional federal legislation, specifically the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, put more money in owners' pockets. That is why this will play out in Washington eventually.
The NFL-NFLPA dispute will start perhaps with a federal mediator, then the National Labor Relations Board, maybe Congress and maybe even the Oval Office. President Bill Clinton in 1994 summoned Major League Baseball owners and players to the White House in an attempt to settle the 1994-95 baseball strike.
He failed.
To that former player, here is the answer not from this writer to the column of 72 hours ago of "How DeMaurice Smith can wreak havoc on a NFL lockout" but from an Associated Press story of November 18, 2010 which is entitled "The Influence Game": NFL union seeks Congress help. A note to the AP writer, DeMaurice Smith runs an association not a union. Apparently according to the story the NFLPA has a lobbyist, which seeming comes as a shock to the AP, who has been working Capital Hill since the summer. The NFL too is working over Congress with a lobbyist and both the NFLPA's DeMaurice Smith and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell have visited the White House.
According to the piece, the NFL's political action group contributed $600,000 in campaign contributions.
Goodell, it should be noted is the son of former New York Senator Charles Goodell, who was appointed to the Senate seat after Robert Kennedy was murdered in June 1968 and is married to a former FOX News Channel anchor Jane Skinner, whose father Sam Skinner is a former White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.
Smith was on the Obama Presidential transitional staff and is a tight friend of Attorney General Eric Holder.
The AP piece, which shows how out of touch the Washington media is with reality has a disclaimer that appears in the middle of the piece --- EDITOR'S NOTE -- An occasional look at how behind-the-scenes influence is exercised in Washington --- as if this is a news flash.
It seems health care for former players could become a major flash point in the battle between the owners and players. Right now the owners seem to have a plan that would cut the players take of the revenues from 59.6 percent of the revenue to 48.2 percent and cut players salaries by 18 percent. If there is no contract in place by March 3, 2011, the players --- a good many of them who have pre-existing conditions could be scrambling for health care.
The NFL plans to use health care as a bargaining tool to get an agreement. The league issued this statement -- "Regarding the funding of current player benefits if there is a work stoppage, here is what we have said: 'This is yet one more reason to get back to the bargaining table and get an agreement. But there is no question that a strike or lockout triggers rights under a federal law known as COBRA that allows employees to continue their existing health insurance coverage without interruption or change in terms -- either at their expense or their union’s expense. This means that no player or family member would experience any change in coverage for so much as a single day because of a work stoppage. The union surely knows this and there is no excuse suggesting otherwise.'”
In the public relations front, the league is assuring retired players that whatever happens with the CBA, they will get their benefits.
“I know that retired players and their families are watching the current round of bargaining between the NFL and players’ union with growing concern,” said NFL Alumni President and Executive Director George Martin in a letter dated September 7, 2010. “They want to make sure that their benefits will be secure and uninterrupted, no matter what happens in those negotiations. I have discussed this matter with Commissioner Goodell on several occasions, and he has always assured me that retired player benefits will be protected, first in the uncapped year, and then if the CBA its expires.
“I have seen the statements from NFLPA representatives that retirees will lose their benefits if the agreement expires. I am convinced that is not true, and have again asked Commissioner Goodell for his assurances on this point. He was unequivocal and told me again that he as Commissioner, and the owners as a group, are committed to protecting and funding current retired player benefit programs.
“In his letter to retired players, Martin said that he had received the following commitments from the NFL:
“First, no matter what the status of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NFL clubs will continue to make all required contributions to the pension plan, will continue to pay in full all pension benefits earned by retired players, and will continue to accept requests from vested players to begin receiving benefits as provided for in the pension plan.
“Second, NFL clubs will continue to fund the basic and supplemental disability plans, and the 88 Plan, and will continue to accept and process new applications even after the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. In addition, the league has pledged to work with NFL Alumni to develop new outreach programs to identify retired players in need of assistance and to getting those players the help they need.
“Third, retired players will continue to receive post-career medical benefits as provided in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, regardless of whether the agreement expires. Their medical benefits will continue on the same terms as today just as if the CBA were still in place.
That should come as good news to one player, an 11-year veteran who will continue to receive his $201.36 a month pension.
But former players don't seem to be too interested in helping DeMaurice Smith. "The NFLPA has been guilty of not helping the pre-1993 retired guys, and these are the guys who have medical problems from playing in the NFL. I don't believe that any of the guys will join DeMaurice Smith, and the NFLPA the way that you suggested because we have been discarded for many, many years by the NFLPA. The thought of using the discarded guys to help settle the CBA negotiations doesn`t sound good to me because of the way that we have been treated.
"During the historic trial that 2062 retired guys were awarded $28.1 million, Jeffrey Kessler, the lead attorney for the NFLPA built his defense around the retired guys being un-marketable, and worthless. He compared us to "dog food.'"
The high stakes battle is gearing up. Goodell and Smith are veteran Washington insiders. The battle is political and much more important than who makes it to "The Big Game" in February.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/in-the-nfl-potential-lockout-all-roads-lead-to-washington
By Evan Weiner
November 18, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Since the last time we visited the potential National Football League owners' lockout of the players next March, about 72 hours ago, it appears that are a number of people have become a bit anxious about the whole process becoming politicized. The NFL had some issues with the piece. Former players had their say and no one, it seems, wants this to head to Congress and the Oval Office.
Or do they?
One former National Football League player sent an e-mail criticizing this writer for suggesting that National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith should take some former players who are disabled from injuries that they suffered while working as football players in the NFL and bring them before Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The suggestion is that Smith have the players testify and ask the GOP leaders to their faces why those two Congressmen and one Senator, along with the others who enjoy stellar house and senate health benefits because they are in Congress, should repeal the law that was passed in 2010 which will allow Americans with pre-existing conditions who cannot get insurance to buy health insurance should be overturned.
The former player wrote, "I take issue with the political spin that you put in your article. You are right, every player has pre-existing conditions as a result of playing in the NFL. It is up to the NFL to take care of their players, past and present. It is not up to the American taxpayer to pay for the care of the NFL players, past and present. It is obvious that the proposed health care plan that Obama passed will destroy our health care industry. I am hopeful that Mr. Cantor and Mr. Boehner will do everything in their power to get the health care plan repealed.
"The NFL owners have incredible revenue streams coming in, and the players who make this possible should be protected by the owners. Football is a huge industry, and there is a tremendous amount of money being generated by the sport. Perhaps the owners could take a part of the revenues that they generate through licensing, and apply them to a health care plan for all players past and present."
The 2010 health care plan isn't too far from the proposed Republican plan of the early 1990s which Robert Dole championed. A number of former NFL players cannot get health care because of pre-existing conditions and they are getting government assistance whether it is Social Security or Medicare despite not being the retirement age which last time anybody looked was funded by American citizens.
The NFL and the NFLPA tried to negotiate a deal to provide health care to about 2,500 out of 3,200 retired players but the NFLPA wanted all the retirees protected and rejected the NFL’s plan. The NFLPA wanted all the players protected and claimed a large group of former players would not be insured by TransAmerica because of pre-existing conditions.
That rejection brings the health care issue into the discussion and could be used as a reason to go before Congress, which under Boehner, Cantor and McConnell wants to roll back the 2010 legislation and there seems to be no GOP alternative.
The National Football League of today was created by Congress and two Presidential signatures. In 1961, two Democrats, Emanuel Cellar in the House and Estes Kefauver in the Senate crafted legislation that became known as the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 which was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy which allowed NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to take all 14 NFL teams and sell them as one entity to American television networks starting in 1962. Rozelle played off CBS and NBC and got substantial deals with CBS. After losing two TV battles to CBS in 1964, NBC chairman David Sarnoff decided to make the American Football League a real major league entity. He gave them a huge (for 1965) five year deal and football was flooded with money.
In 1966, the NFL and AFL agreed to merge but needed Congressional approval. Again Cellar was involved but two Louisiana Democrats, Russell Long in the Senate and Hale Boggs in the House literally traded their votes to Rozelle in exchange for an expansion team in New Orleans and the merger was approved. Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation which was on the back of an anti-inflation bill in October 1966 and within ten days, New Orleans had a team.
Additional federal legislation, specifically the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act, put more money in owners' pockets. That is why this will play out in Washington eventually.
The NFL-NFLPA dispute will start perhaps with a federal mediator, then the National Labor Relations Board, maybe Congress and maybe even the Oval Office. President Bill Clinton in 1994 summoned Major League Baseball owners and players to the White House in an attempt to settle the 1994-95 baseball strike.
He failed.
To that former player, here is the answer not from this writer to the column of 72 hours ago of "How DeMaurice Smith can wreak havoc on a NFL lockout" but from an Associated Press story of November 18, 2010 which is entitled "The Influence Game": NFL union seeks Congress help. A note to the AP writer, DeMaurice Smith runs an association not a union. Apparently according to the story the NFLPA has a lobbyist, which seeming comes as a shock to the AP, who has been working Capital Hill since the summer. The NFL too is working over Congress with a lobbyist and both the NFLPA's DeMaurice Smith and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell have visited the White House.
According to the piece, the NFL's political action group contributed $600,000 in campaign contributions.
Goodell, it should be noted is the son of former New York Senator Charles Goodell, who was appointed to the Senate seat after Robert Kennedy was murdered in June 1968 and is married to a former FOX News Channel anchor Jane Skinner, whose father Sam Skinner is a former White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.
Smith was on the Obama Presidential transitional staff and is a tight friend of Attorney General Eric Holder.
The AP piece, which shows how out of touch the Washington media is with reality has a disclaimer that appears in the middle of the piece --- EDITOR'S NOTE -- An occasional look at how behind-the-scenes influence is exercised in Washington --- as if this is a news flash.
It seems health care for former players could become a major flash point in the battle between the owners and players. Right now the owners seem to have a plan that would cut the players take of the revenues from 59.6 percent of the revenue to 48.2 percent and cut players salaries by 18 percent. If there is no contract in place by March 3, 2011, the players --- a good many of them who have pre-existing conditions could be scrambling for health care.
The NFL plans to use health care as a bargaining tool to get an agreement. The league issued this statement -- "Regarding the funding of current player benefits if there is a work stoppage, here is what we have said: 'This is yet one more reason to get back to the bargaining table and get an agreement. But there is no question that a strike or lockout triggers rights under a federal law known as COBRA that allows employees to continue their existing health insurance coverage without interruption or change in terms -- either at their expense or their union’s expense. This means that no player or family member would experience any change in coverage for so much as a single day because of a work stoppage. The union surely knows this and there is no excuse suggesting otherwise.'”
In the public relations front, the league is assuring retired players that whatever happens with the CBA, they will get their benefits.
“I know that retired players and their families are watching the current round of bargaining between the NFL and players’ union with growing concern,” said NFL Alumni President and Executive Director George Martin in a letter dated September 7, 2010. “They want to make sure that their benefits will be secure and uninterrupted, no matter what happens in those negotiations. I have discussed this matter with Commissioner Goodell on several occasions, and he has always assured me that retired player benefits will be protected, first in the uncapped year, and then if the CBA its expires.
“I have seen the statements from NFLPA representatives that retirees will lose their benefits if the agreement expires. I am convinced that is not true, and have again asked Commissioner Goodell for his assurances on this point. He was unequivocal and told me again that he as Commissioner, and the owners as a group, are committed to protecting and funding current retired player benefit programs.
“In his letter to retired players, Martin said that he had received the following commitments from the NFL:
“First, no matter what the status of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NFL clubs will continue to make all required contributions to the pension plan, will continue to pay in full all pension benefits earned by retired players, and will continue to accept requests from vested players to begin receiving benefits as provided for in the pension plan.
“Second, NFL clubs will continue to fund the basic and supplemental disability plans, and the 88 Plan, and will continue to accept and process new applications even after the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. In addition, the league has pledged to work with NFL Alumni to develop new outreach programs to identify retired players in need of assistance and to getting those players the help they need.
“Third, retired players will continue to receive post-career medical benefits as provided in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, regardless of whether the agreement expires. Their medical benefits will continue on the same terms as today just as if the CBA were still in place.
That should come as good news to one player, an 11-year veteran who will continue to receive his $201.36 a month pension.
But former players don't seem to be too interested in helping DeMaurice Smith. "The NFLPA has been guilty of not helping the pre-1993 retired guys, and these are the guys who have medical problems from playing in the NFL. I don't believe that any of the guys will join DeMaurice Smith, and the NFLPA the way that you suggested because we have been discarded for many, many years by the NFLPA. The thought of using the discarded guys to help settle the CBA negotiations doesn`t sound good to me because of the way that we have been treated.
"During the historic trial that 2062 retired guys were awarded $28.1 million, Jeffrey Kessler, the lead attorney for the NFLPA built his defense around the retired guys being un-marketable, and worthless. He compared us to "dog food.'"
The high stakes battle is gearing up. Goodell and Smith are veteran Washington insiders. The battle is political and much more important than who makes it to "The Big Game" in February.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, September 24, 2010
Some questions NFL players should be asking
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Both Owners and Players Responsible for Retired Football Players Plight
Both Owners and Players Responsible for Retired Football Players Plight
By Evan Weiner
September 5, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/both-owners-and-players-responsible-for-retired-football-players-plight
(New York, N. Y.) -- Another National Football League season is starting and for the first time ever, the NFL seems to be taking a closer look at concussions and head injuries. There is a poster in locker rooms urging players to be vigilant about head injuries, But the NFL has known about head injuries for decades. During the week leading up to the first American Football League-National Football League World Championship Game in Los Angeles in January 1967, football people were talking about head injuries at a bar in a Los Angeles area hotel. Among the people at the bar were NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, CBS Sports President Bill McPhail and the 1940 Heisman Trophy Winner Tom Harmon.
Harmon told the assembled people at the watering hole that once face bars were put onto helmets, the game changed. The head because of the helmet with bars became a weapon. Players would have their bells rung but it was a part of football. The head was better protected, so they thought, after more modern ones replaced the leather helmets and the bars were attached to protect the face.
But Harmon knew better in 1967 and a lot of former players are paying the price because no one listened to Tom Harmon at that Los Angeles hotel bar.
That conversation took place 43 years ago. In those 43 years, many players have suffered because of getting their bell rung. The owners and players didn’t care about the long-term possibilities that players would become disabled because of football-related injuries in any collective bargaining agreements for their post career medical care.
The object was getting the best money deal done.
Who is to blame?
The owners or players? The TV executives who underwrote the enterprise? The marketing partners? The fans?
That is a difficult question to answer.
The owners of the 1950s had no idea what they had in terms of a business. The players of those days played football as a hobby because it is one of two jobs they held. There really wasn’t much scrutiny of injuries in those days. Players fought to stay on 33 man rosters because they wanted to play football. There was no money in the game for anyone so it was all about playing football.
In the 1960s, the National Football League and the American Football League Players Associations were just looking for financial gains as television money began flooding the industry. If there were any player agents in those days, they also were looking for financial gains. No one was looking to what would happen to the former players as they got older and how they would be cared for because of football injuries.
No one it seemed worried about the long term of players who were banging into one another at high speeds and using their heads as part of their blocking strategies. A look at various players associations contract talks with the owners and labor actions is an interesting study.
The players association leadership failed their membership. It was all about money and not about safety and health issues after a playing career was done. The 1974-5 labor talks centered on getting players the right to become free agents and breaking a league ruling that required the commissioner to decide on a compensation package for a team should a player decide to go elsewhere after playing out his option.
The NFLPA’s rallying cry was “No Freedom, No Football.”
"The players were with a team in perpetuity," recalled Randy Vataha, the New England Patriots player representative. "No team was going to give up two first round draft picks to sign a free agent.
The NFL's policy was referred to as the "Rozelle Rule," and the NFLPA membership wanted free agency among their 58 demands in 1975. While the Players Association leadership was prepared to sit out until a new bargaining agreement was hammered out, some of the rank and file wasn't.
By the early part of August, about a quarter of the NFLPA crossed the picket lines. On August 11, Association President Ed Garvey sent his players back to work after a federal mediator suggested a 14-day cooling off period. Garvey would pursue another tactic, the Mackey case.
John Mackey was the one time President of the NFLPA.
The New England Patriots struck the final preseason-season game of the 1975 season. The contest with the New York Jets at New Haven was the first ever cancelled game due to a labor impasse.
"There had been a cooling off period and by mid-season 1974, nothing was happening. The players weren't going to strike and there were no negotiations," said Vataha. The guys on the Patriots asked for an update on the negotiations. They were either going to strike or take the last offer on the table.
"So we didn't play and that week we had some meaningful negotiations. But it was evident that we were going to go ahead with the Mackey case."
The Mackey case began on February 3, 1975. It finally ended for the NFL after the 1987 strike. The NFL did cut deals with the players in 1977 and 1982. The only alternative or leverage the players had in the 1970s was the Canadian Football League which signed Joe Theisman, Tom Cousineau and Vince Ferragammo over the years. But the CFL really posed a threat to the NFL.
The players struck on September 20, 1982 and a collective bargaining agreement was ratified on November 17. Seven games were cancelled as a result of the 57-day walkout.
The four-year deal featured an extension of the college draft through the 1992 season; a minimum salary, training camp and post-season pay were increased along with player medical insurance and retirement benefits. There was also a severance package included after a player was cut.
"I think any time you strike, you strike for a reason," said Harry Carson who was playing with the Giants in 1982. "If we could get some benefit from it, I think it was worth it.
"From the first strike in 1982, we got the severance package as part of it, but we should have gotten more. There were a lot of guys who were not necessarily striking for free agency but they wanted more money.
"Looking at it in retrospect, I think the players should have struck for much better benefits because the NFL probably has the worst retirement package in sports."
Twenty-eight years later, the NFL’s retirees still have a rotten retirement package when compared with former baseball players and other athletes.
Carson said one of the reasons football players have not done as well in negotiations with their owners as say their baseball counterparts is solidarity.
"You don't have the same thing. You have so many players and players have their own agendas. It's hard to keep players together once they go on strike.
"Some players are going to cross the picket line and once that happens, you are not going to succeed."
Carson’s words were direct and strong about NFLPA solidarity. Retired players today are still a fractious bunch with different agendas and for the most part have been tossed aside by present day NFL owners and by the players association. The owners care about their team of today, the players association cares about their players of today. The former players have veered off in different directions in their pursuit of getting health insurance and more retirement money.
The NFL was again forced to deal with it players association in 1987.
The players decided to strike after the second week of the season and the NFL reverted to its 1974 tactic of bringing in rookies and free agents and play replacement games. The league cancelled the third week's schedule and resumed with the week four matchups.
In 2000, Hollywood made a movie about the 1987 strike called "Replacements" which was based on the Washington Redskins.
Some teams scouted the best available talent and tried to put together a strong replacement team. Other teams took chunks of local semipro teams, like the New York Giants, and hoped for the best. Others like Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan didn't take the replacement games too seriously and wanted for the players to return.
Like in 1974, veterans crossed the picket lines and by October 25, the NFL was able to claim victory. The players reverted to their old standby; plan B that was court action and that set off years of litigation.
Dallas Cowboy President Tex Schramm was the main force behind the ploy of bringing in replacement players. The league lost a significant amount of games, eight, in 1982 and that was not going to happen again in 1987.
"It was a great time and a lot of fun," said Charley Casserly who was part of the Redskins front office at that time. "Really, the interesting thing was we put together a time, the whole organization and Joe Gibbs did a great job coaching them. Nobody crossed the picket line and we beat two teams, St. Louis and Dallas on that climatic Monday Night that had about 10-12 players cross the picket line. The Dallas team had (Tony) Dorsett, Randy White, Danny White, Too Tall Jones. It was quite a time."
The NFL teams who did compete for players for Schramm's replacement league look anyway for players. Casserley found four players in a Richmond, Virginia halfway house who were playing for a minor league team including Tony Robinson who was the quarterback of the replacement team that beat Dallas.
"We did have a little philosophy on it," Casserly continued. "We wanted players that knew the system. We had to put together a team in 10 days to go play a game. Football unlike all other sports is really a team sport. So we wanted guys who knew the Joe Gibbs system. So we started with players who had been in our camp that year and been in our camp the year before and had been in camps with the Gibbs/(Don)
Coryell system. We got players from everywhere.
"Obviously NFL cuts, but we got players from Canada, players who were cut in Canada. We wanted players in camp who were healthy and ready to go."
The players crumbled quickly in 1987 but years later Dave Jennings, who was a New York Jet punter at the time, thinks the showdown with the owners was worth it.
"The players were not that interested in a long term strike, they were looking at the next paycheck," said Jennings. "It's tough to get players to strike and stay together. In 1987, it was a shorter strike and we had the court cases working and eventually it worked out for us.
"We got nothing from the 1987 strike, we didn't get anything directly, but indirectly we got free agency and you see what happened. Free agency works."
Free agency might have worked but it didn’t help John Mackey. The head injuries he suffered in his career eventually caught up to him. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income because there was proven link between brain injury and playing football. The league and the NFL Players' Association were almost shamed into coming up with a program that was named after Mackey's number. It provides $88,000-a-year for nursing home care and up to $50,000 annually for adult day care.
The league and players helped Mackey but there are so many who have fallen through the cracks and depend on government programs to pay their medical bills.
The modern players got money but were failed by their union representatives and agents. The owners who didn’t look out for them failed them. The union led by Ed Garvey and then Gene Upshaw did not take care of their constituency. They got the players more money for playing but failed to take care of the players once they were useless to any teams.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on “The Business and Politics of Sports.” He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
September 5, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/business-of-sports-in-national/both-owners-and-players-responsible-for-retired-football-players-plight
(New York, N. Y.) -- Another National Football League season is starting and for the first time ever, the NFL seems to be taking a closer look at concussions and head injuries. There is a poster in locker rooms urging players to be vigilant about head injuries, But the NFL has known about head injuries for decades. During the week leading up to the first American Football League-National Football League World Championship Game in Los Angeles in January 1967, football people were talking about head injuries at a bar in a Los Angeles area hotel. Among the people at the bar were NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, CBS Sports President Bill McPhail and the 1940 Heisman Trophy Winner Tom Harmon.
Harmon told the assembled people at the watering hole that once face bars were put onto helmets, the game changed. The head because of the helmet with bars became a weapon. Players would have their bells rung but it was a part of football. The head was better protected, so they thought, after more modern ones replaced the leather helmets and the bars were attached to protect the face.
But Harmon knew better in 1967 and a lot of former players are paying the price because no one listened to Tom Harmon at that Los Angeles hotel bar.
That conversation took place 43 years ago. In those 43 years, many players have suffered because of getting their bell rung. The owners and players didn’t care about the long-term possibilities that players would become disabled because of football-related injuries in any collective bargaining agreements for their post career medical care.
The object was getting the best money deal done.
Who is to blame?
The owners or players? The TV executives who underwrote the enterprise? The marketing partners? The fans?
That is a difficult question to answer.
The owners of the 1950s had no idea what they had in terms of a business. The players of those days played football as a hobby because it is one of two jobs they held. There really wasn’t much scrutiny of injuries in those days. Players fought to stay on 33 man rosters because they wanted to play football. There was no money in the game for anyone so it was all about playing football.
In the 1960s, the National Football League and the American Football League Players Associations were just looking for financial gains as television money began flooding the industry. If there were any player agents in those days, they also were looking for financial gains. No one was looking to what would happen to the former players as they got older and how they would be cared for because of football injuries.
No one it seemed worried about the long term of players who were banging into one another at high speeds and using their heads as part of their blocking strategies. A look at various players associations contract talks with the owners and labor actions is an interesting study.
The players association leadership failed their membership. It was all about money and not about safety and health issues after a playing career was done. The 1974-5 labor talks centered on getting players the right to become free agents and breaking a league ruling that required the commissioner to decide on a compensation package for a team should a player decide to go elsewhere after playing out his option.
The NFLPA’s rallying cry was “No Freedom, No Football.”
"The players were with a team in perpetuity," recalled Randy Vataha, the New England Patriots player representative. "No team was going to give up two first round draft picks to sign a free agent.
The NFL's policy was referred to as the "Rozelle Rule," and the NFLPA membership wanted free agency among their 58 demands in 1975. While the Players Association leadership was prepared to sit out until a new bargaining agreement was hammered out, some of the rank and file wasn't.
By the early part of August, about a quarter of the NFLPA crossed the picket lines. On August 11, Association President Ed Garvey sent his players back to work after a federal mediator suggested a 14-day cooling off period. Garvey would pursue another tactic, the Mackey case.
John Mackey was the one time President of the NFLPA.
The New England Patriots struck the final preseason-season game of the 1975 season. The contest with the New York Jets at New Haven was the first ever cancelled game due to a labor impasse.
"There had been a cooling off period and by mid-season 1974, nothing was happening. The players weren't going to strike and there were no negotiations," said Vataha. The guys on the Patriots asked for an update on the negotiations. They were either going to strike or take the last offer on the table.
"So we didn't play and that week we had some meaningful negotiations. But it was evident that we were going to go ahead with the Mackey case."
The Mackey case began on February 3, 1975. It finally ended for the NFL after the 1987 strike. The NFL did cut deals with the players in 1977 and 1982. The only alternative or leverage the players had in the 1970s was the Canadian Football League which signed Joe Theisman, Tom Cousineau and Vince Ferragammo over the years. But the CFL really posed a threat to the NFL.
The players struck on September 20, 1982 and a collective bargaining agreement was ratified on November 17. Seven games were cancelled as a result of the 57-day walkout.
The four-year deal featured an extension of the college draft through the 1992 season; a minimum salary, training camp and post-season pay were increased along with player medical insurance and retirement benefits. There was also a severance package included after a player was cut.
"I think any time you strike, you strike for a reason," said Harry Carson who was playing with the Giants in 1982. "If we could get some benefit from it, I think it was worth it.
"From the first strike in 1982, we got the severance package as part of it, but we should have gotten more. There were a lot of guys who were not necessarily striking for free agency but they wanted more money.
"Looking at it in retrospect, I think the players should have struck for much better benefits because the NFL probably has the worst retirement package in sports."
Twenty-eight years later, the NFL’s retirees still have a rotten retirement package when compared with former baseball players and other athletes.
Carson said one of the reasons football players have not done as well in negotiations with their owners as say their baseball counterparts is solidarity.
"You don't have the same thing. You have so many players and players have their own agendas. It's hard to keep players together once they go on strike.
"Some players are going to cross the picket line and once that happens, you are not going to succeed."
Carson’s words were direct and strong about NFLPA solidarity. Retired players today are still a fractious bunch with different agendas and for the most part have been tossed aside by present day NFL owners and by the players association. The owners care about their team of today, the players association cares about their players of today. The former players have veered off in different directions in their pursuit of getting health insurance and more retirement money.
The NFL was again forced to deal with it players association in 1987.
The players decided to strike after the second week of the season and the NFL reverted to its 1974 tactic of bringing in rookies and free agents and play replacement games. The league cancelled the third week's schedule and resumed with the week four matchups.
In 2000, Hollywood made a movie about the 1987 strike called "Replacements" which was based on the Washington Redskins.
Some teams scouted the best available talent and tried to put together a strong replacement team. Other teams took chunks of local semipro teams, like the New York Giants, and hoped for the best. Others like Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan didn't take the replacement games too seriously and wanted for the players to return.
Like in 1974, veterans crossed the picket lines and by October 25, the NFL was able to claim victory. The players reverted to their old standby; plan B that was court action and that set off years of litigation.
Dallas Cowboy President Tex Schramm was the main force behind the ploy of bringing in replacement players. The league lost a significant amount of games, eight, in 1982 and that was not going to happen again in 1987.
"It was a great time and a lot of fun," said Charley Casserly who was part of the Redskins front office at that time. "Really, the interesting thing was we put together a time, the whole organization and Joe Gibbs did a great job coaching them. Nobody crossed the picket line and we beat two teams, St. Louis and Dallas on that climatic Monday Night that had about 10-12 players cross the picket line. The Dallas team had (Tony) Dorsett, Randy White, Danny White, Too Tall Jones. It was quite a time."
The NFL teams who did compete for players for Schramm's replacement league look anyway for players. Casserley found four players in a Richmond, Virginia halfway house who were playing for a minor league team including Tony Robinson who was the quarterback of the replacement team that beat Dallas.
"We did have a little philosophy on it," Casserly continued. "We wanted players that knew the system. We had to put together a team in 10 days to go play a game. Football unlike all other sports is really a team sport. So we wanted guys who knew the Joe Gibbs system. So we started with players who had been in our camp that year and been in our camp the year before and had been in camps with the Gibbs/(Don)
Coryell system. We got players from everywhere.
"Obviously NFL cuts, but we got players from Canada, players who were cut in Canada. We wanted players in camp who were healthy and ready to go."
The players crumbled quickly in 1987 but years later Dave Jennings, who was a New York Jet punter at the time, thinks the showdown with the owners was worth it.
"The players were not that interested in a long term strike, they were looking at the next paycheck," said Jennings. "It's tough to get players to strike and stay together. In 1987, it was a shorter strike and we had the court cases working and eventually it worked out for us.
"We got nothing from the 1987 strike, we didn't get anything directly, but indirectly we got free agency and you see what happened. Free agency works."
Free agency might have worked but it didn’t help John Mackey. The head injuries he suffered in his career eventually caught up to him. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income because there was proven link between brain injury and playing football. The league and the NFL Players' Association were almost shamed into coming up with a program that was named after Mackey's number. It provides $88,000-a-year for nursing home care and up to $50,000 annually for adult day care.
The league and players helped Mackey but there are so many who have fallen through the cracks and depend on government programs to pay their medical bills.
The modern players got money but were failed by their union representatives and agents. The owners who didn’t look out for them failed them. The union led by Ed Garvey and then Gene Upshaw did not take care of their constituency. They got the players more money for playing but failed to take care of the players once they were useless to any teams.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on “The Business and Politics of Sports.” He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
NFL’s concussion warning poster a small step for football
NFL’s concussion warning poster a small step for football
TUESDAY, 03 AUGUST 2010 15:47
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfls-concussion-warning-poster-a-small-step-for-football
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
When Brent Boyd reported to the Minnesota Vikings training camp in 1980 after being selected in the third round of that year's draft, the last thing on his mind was testifying before a Congressional panel about the plight of former National Football League players who suffered head injuries doing their jobs as professional football players. Boyd was a guard and like a lot of rookies, he was eager to make a favorable impression of Vikings coach Bud Grant.
Twenty-seven Septembers later in 2007, Boyd was telling members of the United States Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that he suffered brain damage from concussions, and how a disability review board rejected the opinion of two doctors who said his health problems were caused by football and sided with a third doctor who didn't agree with the other two. Boyd testified that the NFL and NFLPA were battling links between long-term health problems and concussions in the same way tobacco companies once fought links between cancer and cigarettes.
Nearly three years later, a good number of retired players are frustrated and wondering whatever happened to NFL provided healthcare after they left the NFL and why the public — both football and non-football fans — is paying their healthcare.
Boyd is still battling for NFL — not public — health benefits.
Boyd has been one of the most vocal critics of the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association. He remembered the game that would ultimately change his life. It was the final pre-season game of the 1980 season, Boyd's Vikings took on the Miami Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl. Boyd was knocked out on a play and lost sight in his right eye. He was on the sidelines telling his coach that he could see out of his right eye, the coach said can you see out of your left eye, Boyd said yes and went back into the game.
He had his bell rung. It wasn't a concussion or anything serious, he was wobbly, dizzy and couldn't see out of his right eye but as soon as all of that went away, he would be fine. It was like hitting your funny bone. Boyd was a rookie hoping to make the team and would do anything not to be cut including staying in the game. It was the turning point of Boyd's life. He made the team but his health was severely compromised. It was the first of dozens or maybe even hundreds of concussions he suffered. The injury would eventually cost him his career, a possibility of going to law school, his marriage, his post career jobs and his house. It was not until 1989 he said that he found out that the constant dizziness and fatigue were caused by the head injuries.
Boyd was out of football by 1987 at the age of 30. "Guys who retire in their 20s and 30s have a regular life ahead of them. Careers, family, you have to pay mortgages. It took away my mind, my potential dreams and goals," he said. But Boyd because of the multiple concussions could not have that and became the "father of the new movement on concussions" instead.
Out of that Boyd founded "Dignity After Football" which is a group that is fighting for the "decent benefits and dignity" for former American and National Football League players who performed in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s before the explosion of salaries in the game. Boyd wants to get the message out to the people who fund the game, TV partners, marketing partners, the people who buy luxury boxes, club suites, park in valet parking and use in-stadium restaurants and buy merchandise along with just everyday football fans. The group that includes Roman Gabriel, Joe Kapp and Ed White wants people to know that "former players live out their lives above the poverty lines and did not know how playing on Astroturf, which was developed by Monsanto, (or polyturf) would impact their bodies and the players were never told about the dangers of 'getting your bell rung' which was a concussion with serious long term effects."
The National Football League has, at least, publicly posted a warning to players which will be posted in NFL locker rooms that comes complete with a warning which seems similar to the little blurbs on cigarette packs that say smoking can be harmful. The NFL's poster includes a warning — that concussions "can change your life and your family's life forever." The warning has slogans such as "Let's Take Brain Injuries Out of Play" and has information about concussions such as facts, symptoms, and poses questions such as "Why Should I Report My Symptoms" and "What Should I Do If I Think I've Had a Concussion."
The NFL seems to be willing to acknowledge there is a problem after years of denial but for former players like Boyd, the operative word here is seems. There is little movement to help the older players like the 53-year old Boyd who rely on government programs such as Social Security and Medicare for their health care.
"There is no health care," said Boyd. (The injuries) drains bank accounts, forces divorces. We (as football players) went in with the understanding that there was a safety net."
But there was no safety net and that leads to two questions. Were members of the National Football League Players Association underrepresented under their Executive Directors Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and should municipalities be liable for some of the injuries because ultimately municipalities ran stadiums that players knew were unsafe? Players would tell anyone who listened that the municipally owned stadiums in Philadelphia and Houston were the worst playing surfaces around and that the "artificial turf" under any name was taking a toll on the players well being.
Could the players go after the NFLPA in court for not getting benefits as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the owners? Could the players go after the municipalities or someone for installing Astroturf or polyturf or some other surface which was on top of a thin rubber pad on top of asphalt or cement? Is it too late to go after all the municipalities that had unsafe fields?
Boyd is not sure about a class action suit by the former players against their former association but the municipality liability is a question that might be worth pursuing.
The ersatz turf had bubbles and seems which players didn't think much about during the course of doing their jobs. Some players suffered knee injuries just hitting a seem, players that were knocked down hit the ground hard on a turf that the rug on top of the rubber on top of the asphalt or cement, the brain could not handle that type of impact.
In addition to his head injuries, Boyd has had knee replacements and has bad hips. The need replacements were paid by the United States government insurance programs, not the NFL.
Boyd has taken his case to Washington and is hoping that the United States Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives will put pressure on the NFL and the NFLPA to take care of the older players.
A lot of the former players though are keeping quiet publicly. Privately there are e-mails from former players such as this one whose name will not be identified.
"I just had neck surgery and I am scheduled to have lumbar (L3 L4 L5) surgery in November. I am thinking about trying the Oxygen chambers for my recovery as well as, using the Oxygen chambers to reduce some of the pain in my lower back that I suffer with daily.
"Question: Will this treatment (Oxygen chamber) help me? How will it help? How often should I administer this treatment in order to see the benefits? However, it's $$Very Expensive. I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thank you for any assistance that you can provide on this matter and concern."
Some former players are pushing for the NFL to install hyperbaric oxygen chambers at training facilities and stadiums to help players (and former) players with head injuries and memory loss.
There is also a new collective bargaining agreement that needs to be negotiated between the owners and players. The present agreement ends shortly after the Super Bowl is played in February. So far there is no political pressure on the owners and players to address the old players needs however that could change if Congress decides to take a closer look at the NFL.
Why should Congress be involved? Congress created today's NFL. The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Cellar's gift to then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and NFL owners. Cellar got the bill passed in the House, The Senate agreed and President John F. Kennedy signed it into law on September 30, 1961. The bill allowed the NFL to sell all 14 teams as one entity to a TV network. CBS beat out NBC with a major contract that was worth more than all 14 individual local NFL TV networks combined and started the NFL gold mine. The American Football League's 1964 agreement with NBC made it possible for the league to challenge the NFL financially and ultimately force a merger between the competitors in 1966.
Congress had to approve the merger. Both the House and Senate signed off on the merger and President Lyndon Johnson's signature in 1966 created a super football league and the Super Bowl.
Additionally two Congressional bills that were signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the Tax Act of 1986 greatly benefitted the NFL (and all major league sports in the United States). Owners were able to make billions because of the changes in the cable TV structure which a basic expanded tier and ruled out a la carte selections by consumers and the changes in the tax code changed the way municipalities funded stadiums. Municipalities could get as little as eight cents on the dollar from stadium revenues to pay off stadium debt. It is not a coincidence that most new or renovated stadium and arena facilities in the United States were built after 1986.
Boyd thinks the National Football League Players Association should have taken better care of the players but the players have never really looked after much except getting paid more money. Boyd was the Vikings player rep during the 1982 strike and said that the players had to be sold on paying union dues as it was voluntary in those days and that players just concentrated on ending the strike of 1982 and getting back on the field. An effort to include players who played before 1959 in a benefits package failed in 1982. These were the same players who formed the NFLPA back in 1956.
The players wanted more immediately and never thought about the future and the Garvey-Upshaw team always concentrated on getting more money but some players privately complained about making sure that someone took care of playing conditions and severance/health packages.
Money won out. A pension and disability plan lost. Twenty five years after the 1982 strike, pension and disability remained a problem that Congress wanted to know about.
"We fought for the salaries and benefits (today's players get); it would be a classy thing for today's players (to give some benefits). You are only allowed the benefits you negotiate," Boyd said.
Boyd is one of the few who is visibly out in the public talking about the old players. The old players do talk among themselves about injuries but there is a football mentality of suck it up. They know football is a violent game and that a player will get injured. But it is still for them, take one for the team or as the Giants defensive lineman Jim Burt said after the 1987 strike when the players folded like a cheap suit, "we are used to be hit over the head but its okay."
The mentality has not seemed to change much after retirement.
"There is a touch of machismo," said Boyd. "There is fatalism, an embarrassment. Why do it if nothing is going on?" The fatalism comes out. "I don't know how many years I have left but I don't feel robbed (by playing football). I made uninformed decisions, that's what you made. I feel robbed that I didn't have that information (on head injuries), there is an irony at the same time the NFL is being the good guy with the posters about concussions, they denied (Boyd's) disability."
The poster is up in NFL locker rooms on concussions. But the former players who have had life altering injuries have seen no real change. For a good many of them, they are out of sight and out of mind even though they were the guys immortalized by the voice of John Facenda on NFL Films, sportswriters and TV networks, and built the National Football League into the America's most popular game.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 03 AUGUST 2010 15:47
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfls-concussion-warning-poster-a-small-step-for-football
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
When Brent Boyd reported to the Minnesota Vikings training camp in 1980 after being selected in the third round of that year's draft, the last thing on his mind was testifying before a Congressional panel about the plight of former National Football League players who suffered head injuries doing their jobs as professional football players. Boyd was a guard and like a lot of rookies, he was eager to make a favorable impression of Vikings coach Bud Grant.
Twenty-seven Septembers later in 2007, Boyd was telling members of the United States Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that he suffered brain damage from concussions, and how a disability review board rejected the opinion of two doctors who said his health problems were caused by football and sided with a third doctor who didn't agree with the other two. Boyd testified that the NFL and NFLPA were battling links between long-term health problems and concussions in the same way tobacco companies once fought links between cancer and cigarettes.
Nearly three years later, a good number of retired players are frustrated and wondering whatever happened to NFL provided healthcare after they left the NFL and why the public — both football and non-football fans — is paying their healthcare.
Boyd is still battling for NFL — not public — health benefits.
Boyd has been one of the most vocal critics of the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association. He remembered the game that would ultimately change his life. It was the final pre-season game of the 1980 season, Boyd's Vikings took on the Miami Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl. Boyd was knocked out on a play and lost sight in his right eye. He was on the sidelines telling his coach that he could see out of his right eye, the coach said can you see out of your left eye, Boyd said yes and went back into the game.
He had his bell rung. It wasn't a concussion or anything serious, he was wobbly, dizzy and couldn't see out of his right eye but as soon as all of that went away, he would be fine. It was like hitting your funny bone. Boyd was a rookie hoping to make the team and would do anything not to be cut including staying in the game. It was the turning point of Boyd's life. He made the team but his health was severely compromised. It was the first of dozens or maybe even hundreds of concussions he suffered. The injury would eventually cost him his career, a possibility of going to law school, his marriage, his post career jobs and his house. It was not until 1989 he said that he found out that the constant dizziness and fatigue were caused by the head injuries.
Boyd was out of football by 1987 at the age of 30. "Guys who retire in their 20s and 30s have a regular life ahead of them. Careers, family, you have to pay mortgages. It took away my mind, my potential dreams and goals," he said. But Boyd because of the multiple concussions could not have that and became the "father of the new movement on concussions" instead.
Out of that Boyd founded "Dignity After Football" which is a group that is fighting for the "decent benefits and dignity" for former American and National Football League players who performed in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s before the explosion of salaries in the game. Boyd wants to get the message out to the people who fund the game, TV partners, marketing partners, the people who buy luxury boxes, club suites, park in valet parking and use in-stadium restaurants and buy merchandise along with just everyday football fans. The group that includes Roman Gabriel, Joe Kapp and Ed White wants people to know that "former players live out their lives above the poverty lines and did not know how playing on Astroturf, which was developed by Monsanto, (or polyturf) would impact their bodies and the players were never told about the dangers of 'getting your bell rung' which was a concussion with serious long term effects."
The National Football League has, at least, publicly posted a warning to players which will be posted in NFL locker rooms that comes complete with a warning which seems similar to the little blurbs on cigarette packs that say smoking can be harmful. The NFL's poster includes a warning — that concussions "can change your life and your family's life forever." The warning has slogans such as "Let's Take Brain Injuries Out of Play" and has information about concussions such as facts, symptoms, and poses questions such as "Why Should I Report My Symptoms" and "What Should I Do If I Think I've Had a Concussion."
The NFL seems to be willing to acknowledge there is a problem after years of denial but for former players like Boyd, the operative word here is seems. There is little movement to help the older players like the 53-year old Boyd who rely on government programs such as Social Security and Medicare for their health care.
"There is no health care," said Boyd. (The injuries) drains bank accounts, forces divorces. We (as football players) went in with the understanding that there was a safety net."
But there was no safety net and that leads to two questions. Were members of the National Football League Players Association underrepresented under their Executive Directors Ed Garvey and Gene Upshaw and should municipalities be liable for some of the injuries because ultimately municipalities ran stadiums that players knew were unsafe? Players would tell anyone who listened that the municipally owned stadiums in Philadelphia and Houston were the worst playing surfaces around and that the "artificial turf" under any name was taking a toll on the players well being.
Could the players go after the NFLPA in court for not getting benefits as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the owners? Could the players go after the municipalities or someone for installing Astroturf or polyturf or some other surface which was on top of a thin rubber pad on top of asphalt or cement? Is it too late to go after all the municipalities that had unsafe fields?
Boyd is not sure about a class action suit by the former players against their former association but the municipality liability is a question that might be worth pursuing.
The ersatz turf had bubbles and seems which players didn't think much about during the course of doing their jobs. Some players suffered knee injuries just hitting a seem, players that were knocked down hit the ground hard on a turf that the rug on top of the rubber on top of the asphalt or cement, the brain could not handle that type of impact.
In addition to his head injuries, Boyd has had knee replacements and has bad hips. The need replacements were paid by the United States government insurance programs, not the NFL.
Boyd has taken his case to Washington and is hoping that the United States Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives will put pressure on the NFL and the NFLPA to take care of the older players.
A lot of the former players though are keeping quiet publicly. Privately there are e-mails from former players such as this one whose name will not be identified.
"I just had neck surgery and I am scheduled to have lumbar (L3 L4 L5) surgery in November. I am thinking about trying the Oxygen chambers for my recovery as well as, using the Oxygen chambers to reduce some of the pain in my lower back that I suffer with daily.
"Question: Will this treatment (Oxygen chamber) help me? How will it help? How often should I administer this treatment in order to see the benefits? However, it's $$Very Expensive. I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thank you for any assistance that you can provide on this matter and concern."
Some former players are pushing for the NFL to install hyperbaric oxygen chambers at training facilities and stadiums to help players (and former) players with head injuries and memory loss.
There is also a new collective bargaining agreement that needs to be negotiated between the owners and players. The present agreement ends shortly after the Super Bowl is played in February. So far there is no political pressure on the owners and players to address the old players needs however that could change if Congress decides to take a closer look at the NFL.
Why should Congress be involved? Congress created today's NFL. The Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 was Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Cellar's gift to then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and NFL owners. Cellar got the bill passed in the House, The Senate agreed and President John F. Kennedy signed it into law on September 30, 1961. The bill allowed the NFL to sell all 14 teams as one entity to a TV network. CBS beat out NBC with a major contract that was worth more than all 14 individual local NFL TV networks combined and started the NFL gold mine. The American Football League's 1964 agreement with NBC made it possible for the league to challenge the NFL financially and ultimately force a merger between the competitors in 1966.
Congress had to approve the merger. Both the House and Senate signed off on the merger and President Lyndon Johnson's signature in 1966 created a super football league and the Super Bowl.
Additionally two Congressional bills that were signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV Act and the Tax Act of 1986 greatly benefitted the NFL (and all major league sports in the United States). Owners were able to make billions because of the changes in the cable TV structure which a basic expanded tier and ruled out a la carte selections by consumers and the changes in the tax code changed the way municipalities funded stadiums. Municipalities could get as little as eight cents on the dollar from stadium revenues to pay off stadium debt. It is not a coincidence that most new or renovated stadium and arena facilities in the United States were built after 1986.
Boyd thinks the National Football League Players Association should have taken better care of the players but the players have never really looked after much except getting paid more money. Boyd was the Vikings player rep during the 1982 strike and said that the players had to be sold on paying union dues as it was voluntary in those days and that players just concentrated on ending the strike of 1982 and getting back on the field. An effort to include players who played before 1959 in a benefits package failed in 1982. These were the same players who formed the NFLPA back in 1956.
The players wanted more immediately and never thought about the future and the Garvey-Upshaw team always concentrated on getting more money but some players privately complained about making sure that someone took care of playing conditions and severance/health packages.
Money won out. A pension and disability plan lost. Twenty five years after the 1982 strike, pension and disability remained a problem that Congress wanted to know about.
"We fought for the salaries and benefits (today's players get); it would be a classy thing for today's players (to give some benefits). You are only allowed the benefits you negotiate," Boyd said.
Boyd is one of the few who is visibly out in the public talking about the old players. The old players do talk among themselves about injuries but there is a football mentality of suck it up. They know football is a violent game and that a player will get injured. But it is still for them, take one for the team or as the Giants defensive lineman Jim Burt said after the 1987 strike when the players folded like a cheap suit, "we are used to be hit over the head but its okay."
The mentality has not seemed to change much after retirement.
"There is a touch of machismo," said Boyd. "There is fatalism, an embarrassment. Why do it if nothing is going on?" The fatalism comes out. "I don't know how many years I have left but I don't feel robbed (by playing football). I made uninformed decisions, that's what you made. I feel robbed that I didn't have that information (on head injuries), there is an irony at the same time the NFL is being the good guy with the posters about concussions, they denied (Boyd's) disability."
The poster is up in NFL locker rooms on concussions. But the former players who have had life altering injuries have seen no real change. For a good many of them, they are out of sight and out of mind even though they were the guys immortalized by the voice of John Facenda on NFL Films, sportswriters and TV networks, and built the National Football League into the America's most popular game.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio and TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The football culture needs to be changed
The football culture needs to be changed
TUESDAY, 06 JULY 2010 16:36
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THE-FOOTBALL-CULTURE-NEEDS-TO-BE-CHANGED#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
George Visger thought he had it all when he was drafted by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the National Football League draft in 1980. Visger had it all mapped out. He was going to play for five years and then hunt and fish for the rest of his life.
It would be an ideal life. But to players the initials NFL don't stand for National Football League. They mean "Not For Long" and Visger, like many others, didn't understand that aspect of pro football when he started his journey to make the Jets squad.
The Jets coaching staff seemed to like Visger. But there was a problem; Visger was an undersized defensive lineman at 259 pounds when he arrived at mini-camp. But there was a solution called steroids, which were legal and easily obtainable. When Visger returned for Jets training camp at Hofstra University he was 275 pounds. The supplements which included Dianabol, Anavar helped an awful lot and Visger started one pre-season game against the Pittsburgh Steelers where he lined up against his idol, Steelers center Mike Webster. But Visger wasn't good enough and Jets coach Walt Michaels sent him packing.
It is the beginning of the end for Visger's dream, life and the start of a nightmare that continues to this day. Visger eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers a number of weeks into the season. He suffered a concussion in his first game on the first play of the day. It wasn't Visger's first concussion in his life; he had many before going back to his days in Pop Warner football. But this one was bad. It took somewhere between 25 and 30 smelling salts to get Visger's head clear enough to play the rest of the game. During the game there were more smelling salts.
The training staff and Visger laughed it off. After all, he was in the NFL, where playing with pain is part of the testing of your manhood, which is very important in the NFL. But this concussion was no laughing matter. Visger developed hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and within a year, he had the first of his eight brain surgeries.
In mini-camp in May 1981, Visger blew out his knee. The 49ers doctors patched it up and he made it to training camp. The knee went again but that was the least of Visger's problems. The 1980 concussion caught up to him.
In August, Visger developed major headaches, projectile vomiting and a loss of vision. "I had a bright ball of light in the middle of my vision like in front of each eye, and the edge of my vision would light up like someone was holding a spot light on the back of my head," he said. "Each time I had the headaches at night. I discovered through my own investigations that these are common symptoms of brain swelling where it puts pressure on the optic nerves. My hearing would come and go with the beat of my heart during the headaches each night (also caused by swelling to the brain). One of them (a 49ers team doctor) said I had high blood pressure and prescribed high blood pressure medication.
"Headaches began a few weeks after the knee surgery and got progressively worse. (I) saw the team doctors a few more times on the headaches, as I was doing rehab on my knee several times a day, and would see them on a regular basis. (The) Headaches culminated in focal point paralysis of left (or right) arm the night of the Chicago game."
By September, Visger had emergency VP shunt brain surgery at Stanford Hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care. The 49ers organization was more concerned about winning football games than the health of a player who was useless to the team. Football teams move on, it is a cold reality of the business.
"No players or coaches visited during this time other than my two roommates Terry Tautolo and Scot Stauch," said Visger. "They cut Terry a day before I was released from the hospital, and Scott was packing his bags as I walked in the door after my hospital stay. He was sent to New Orleans. The doctor stated the surgery would only take a couple hours and I was in for over 4 hours. He had mentioned to my family in the waiting room, before the surgery, that my aqueductal stenosis (blockage of the aqua duct of Silvius, which was causing fluid to build up in my back two ventricles as apparent by the CAT scans), could be caused by a tumor. When I was in surgery for so long the family guessed they found a tumor. (They) Asked the doctor about it after surgery and he said he never stated the surgery would only take a couple hours. They said he got very defensive. To this day (they) don't know what took so long, but I immediately began having brain seizures from alcohol right after the surgery."
Visger was gone from the NFL but the wreckage heaped on his body from playing football remained. Besides the head injuries, there were the knee injuries, broken vertebrae and then anger management issues. He would have seven more brain surgeries and nearly died in 1982 from his brain injuries. He was also arrested. Yet at the age of 51, Visger is still around to talk about life after football and even is suggesting ways of improving the working conditions of football. But Visger is one of those players that both the NFL and the National Football League Players Association would like to forget. Visger's career was short; he didn't qualify for retirement benefits and is begging the league for help with his health and his family's sanity.
Visger is one of the thousands upon thousands of NFL players who fall through the cracks. The National Football League Players Association wanted no part of these players and received no help from Gene Upshaw and Doug Allen when they ran the association. Since going public with his plight, Visger has heard from the new Executive Director DeMaurice Smith but there is no money coming from the NFLPA. Visger is working with NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee co-chair Dr. Richard Ellenbogen in an attempt to change the culture of football.
Visger wants to see changes in medical testing, in training procedures in terms of diagnosing and the treatment of concussions, along with changes in equipment including the elimination of helmets (unlikely) because helmets are used as weapons. Visger would change some rules and hopes that players start speaking up about injuries.
The "culture of football" can best be described by Jim Burt's reaction as he was walking into the New York Giants locker room at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was just after the 1987 NFL strike ended when the players caved and went back to work. Burt said, "we are used to being beaten over the head" and went back to work after the owners strategy prevailed.
Visger is not surprised with the findings that one time Cincinnati Bengalis receiver Chris Henry, who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University. Henry, Visger's idol Mike Webster, Tom McHale, Justin Strzelczyk and Andre Waters also were found to have damaged brains during their autopsies. Visger himself is amazed that he is still alive.
The brain is not designed to stand up to high speed collisions which take place on the field.
Visger is a test case of sorts for doctors. He will be visiting Dr. Daniel G. Amen this week in Newport Beach, California and go through a series of tests on his brain. Visger is hoping that Dr. Amen would provide some help to him and his family. But he also wonders, how many former players there are who are in bad shape and no one really knows it.
Conrad Dobler is very visible talking about his knees and how one of his legs needs to be amputated. The former President of the National Football league Players Association John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end, has dementia and lives in a full time assisted adult program. The National Football League Players Association Executive Director a number of years ago, the late Gene Upshaw, refused to help Mackey and pay him disability because Upshaw and the NFLPA claimed there was no direct link between playing football and players who suffered brain injuries. But there is a University of North Carolina study of 2,500 former NFL players that showed they faced a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than other men their age group. Eventually the players and the league came up with the "88 plan" which provides $88,000 for home nursing care and $50,000 for assisted living.
Mike Ditka has a Facebook page called Mike Ditka's Official Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Ditka has been a tireless worker on behalf of the football playing community to help out players who are like Visger. The page outlined the problem — "the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Gridiron Greats is a 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization providing financial and medical services to retired NFL players in DIRE need, most, if not all — who contributed greatly to NFL's national past time status, popularity and appeal. Due to inadequate disability, health care and insurance and no established retired player pension program, these men face dire daily challenges to sustain a quality of life and due to the amount of trauma their bodies endured during their careers, are either unable to work or face financial hardships since their careers ended. Gridiron Greats mission is to assist these men financially and provide them with medical assistance through their pro-bono medical program to provide these men with the dignity they so deserve."
"Iron" Mike Webster's bust stands in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Webster might have been the greatest center of all time but his post-career was anything but Hall of Fame grandeur. Webster had brain damage and lived out of truck in both Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, begging for Kentucky Fried Chicken leftovers.
People do ask whatever happen to so and so? In some cases, the stories are far less than storybook endings. A good number of rookies are eagerly awaiting the beginning of training camp and getting on an NFL roster. Would Visger do it all over again if he could?
The answer is quick and to the point.
"No."
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 06 JULY 2010 16:36
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THE-FOOTBALL-CULTURE-NEEDS-TO-BE-CHANGED#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
George Visger thought he had it all when he was drafted by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the National Football League draft in 1980. Visger had it all mapped out. He was going to play for five years and then hunt and fish for the rest of his life.
It would be an ideal life. But to players the initials NFL don't stand for National Football League. They mean "Not For Long" and Visger, like many others, didn't understand that aspect of pro football when he started his journey to make the Jets squad.
The Jets coaching staff seemed to like Visger. But there was a problem; Visger was an undersized defensive lineman at 259 pounds when he arrived at mini-camp. But there was a solution called steroids, which were legal and easily obtainable. When Visger returned for Jets training camp at Hofstra University he was 275 pounds. The supplements which included Dianabol, Anavar helped an awful lot and Visger started one pre-season game against the Pittsburgh Steelers where he lined up against his idol, Steelers center Mike Webster. But Visger wasn't good enough and Jets coach Walt Michaels sent him packing.
It is the beginning of the end for Visger's dream, life and the start of a nightmare that continues to this day. Visger eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers a number of weeks into the season. He suffered a concussion in his first game on the first play of the day. It wasn't Visger's first concussion in his life; he had many before going back to his days in Pop Warner football. But this one was bad. It took somewhere between 25 and 30 smelling salts to get Visger's head clear enough to play the rest of the game. During the game there were more smelling salts.
The training staff and Visger laughed it off. After all, he was in the NFL, where playing with pain is part of the testing of your manhood, which is very important in the NFL. But this concussion was no laughing matter. Visger developed hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and within a year, he had the first of his eight brain surgeries.
In mini-camp in May 1981, Visger blew out his knee. The 49ers doctors patched it up and he made it to training camp. The knee went again but that was the least of Visger's problems. The 1980 concussion caught up to him.
In August, Visger developed major headaches, projectile vomiting and a loss of vision. "I had a bright ball of light in the middle of my vision like in front of each eye, and the edge of my vision would light up like someone was holding a spot light on the back of my head," he said. "Each time I had the headaches at night. I discovered through my own investigations that these are common symptoms of brain swelling where it puts pressure on the optic nerves. My hearing would come and go with the beat of my heart during the headaches each night (also caused by swelling to the brain). One of them (a 49ers team doctor) said I had high blood pressure and prescribed high blood pressure medication.
"Headaches began a few weeks after the knee surgery and got progressively worse. (I) saw the team doctors a few more times on the headaches, as I was doing rehab on my knee several times a day, and would see them on a regular basis. (The) Headaches culminated in focal point paralysis of left (or right) arm the night of the Chicago game."
By September, Visger had emergency VP shunt brain surgery at Stanford Hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care. The 49ers organization was more concerned about winning football games than the health of a player who was useless to the team. Football teams move on, it is a cold reality of the business.
"No players or coaches visited during this time other than my two roommates Terry Tautolo and Scot Stauch," said Visger. "They cut Terry a day before I was released from the hospital, and Scott was packing his bags as I walked in the door after my hospital stay. He was sent to New Orleans. The doctor stated the surgery would only take a couple hours and I was in for over 4 hours. He had mentioned to my family in the waiting room, before the surgery, that my aqueductal stenosis (blockage of the aqua duct of Silvius, which was causing fluid to build up in my back two ventricles as apparent by the CAT scans), could be caused by a tumor. When I was in surgery for so long the family guessed they found a tumor. (They) Asked the doctor about it after surgery and he said he never stated the surgery would only take a couple hours. They said he got very defensive. To this day (they) don't know what took so long, but I immediately began having brain seizures from alcohol right after the surgery."
Visger was gone from the NFL but the wreckage heaped on his body from playing football remained. Besides the head injuries, there were the knee injuries, broken vertebrae and then anger management issues. He would have seven more brain surgeries and nearly died in 1982 from his brain injuries. He was also arrested. Yet at the age of 51, Visger is still around to talk about life after football and even is suggesting ways of improving the working conditions of football. But Visger is one of those players that both the NFL and the National Football League Players Association would like to forget. Visger's career was short; he didn't qualify for retirement benefits and is begging the league for help with his health and his family's sanity.
Visger is one of the thousands upon thousands of NFL players who fall through the cracks. The National Football League Players Association wanted no part of these players and received no help from Gene Upshaw and Doug Allen when they ran the association. Since going public with his plight, Visger has heard from the new Executive Director DeMaurice Smith but there is no money coming from the NFLPA. Visger is working with NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee co-chair Dr. Richard Ellenbogen in an attempt to change the culture of football.
Visger wants to see changes in medical testing, in training procedures in terms of diagnosing and the treatment of concussions, along with changes in equipment including the elimination of helmets (unlikely) because helmets are used as weapons. Visger would change some rules and hopes that players start speaking up about injuries.
The "culture of football" can best be described by Jim Burt's reaction as he was walking into the New York Giants locker room at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was just after the 1987 NFL strike ended when the players caved and went back to work. Burt said, "we are used to being beaten over the head" and went back to work after the owners strategy prevailed.
Visger is not surprised with the findings that one time Cincinnati Bengalis receiver Chris Henry, who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University. Henry, Visger's idol Mike Webster, Tom McHale, Justin Strzelczyk and Andre Waters also were found to have damaged brains during their autopsies. Visger himself is amazed that he is still alive.
The brain is not designed to stand up to high speed collisions which take place on the field.
Visger is a test case of sorts for doctors. He will be visiting Dr. Daniel G. Amen this week in Newport Beach, California and go through a series of tests on his brain. Visger is hoping that Dr. Amen would provide some help to him and his family. But he also wonders, how many former players there are who are in bad shape and no one really knows it.
Conrad Dobler is very visible talking about his knees and how one of his legs needs to be amputated. The former President of the National Football league Players Association John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end, has dementia and lives in a full time assisted adult program. The National Football League Players Association Executive Director a number of years ago, the late Gene Upshaw, refused to help Mackey and pay him disability because Upshaw and the NFLPA claimed there was no direct link between playing football and players who suffered brain injuries. But there is a University of North Carolina study of 2,500 former NFL players that showed they faced a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than other men their age group. Eventually the players and the league came up with the "88 plan" which provides $88,000 for home nursing care and $50,000 for assisted living.
Mike Ditka has a Facebook page called Mike Ditka's Official Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Ditka has been a tireless worker on behalf of the football playing community to help out players who are like Visger. The page outlined the problem — "the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Gridiron Greats is a 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization providing financial and medical services to retired NFL players in DIRE need, most, if not all — who contributed greatly to NFL's national past time status, popularity and appeal. Due to inadequate disability, health care and insurance and no established retired player pension program, these men face dire daily challenges to sustain a quality of life and due to the amount of trauma their bodies endured during their careers, are either unable to work or face financial hardships since their careers ended. Gridiron Greats mission is to assist these men financially and provide them with medical assistance through their pro-bono medical program to provide these men with the dignity they so deserve."
"Iron" Mike Webster's bust stands in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Webster might have been the greatest center of all time but his post-career was anything but Hall of Fame grandeur. Webster had brain damage and lived out of truck in both Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, begging for Kentucky Fried Chicken leftovers.
People do ask whatever happen to so and so? In some cases, the stories are far less than storybook endings. A good number of rookies are eagerly awaiting the beginning of training camp and getting on an NFL roster. Would Visger do it all over again if he could?
The answer is quick and to the point.
"No."
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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